


Firewhiskey Nights

by Kittenshift17



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Romance, infertility issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:41:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: Paroled to preserve their magical bloodlines, Thorfinn Rowle and Antonin Dolohov are just trying to get on with their lives. A drunken one night stand between Hermione and Thorfinn, coupled with Dolohov's obsession with the curly haired witch lead them toward a series of unexpected, but not entirely unfortunate events.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Canimal is responsible for the use of Thorfinn calling Hermione 'Princess' and for the fanon pertaining to Thorfinn having been a 7th year when Hermione was a 1st year. She is also the mastermind behind the library blowjob scene. All credits for those things belong to her.

****

**Firewhiskey Nights**

_By Kittenshift17_

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

"Blast it all, Fred Weasley, you give me back my key!" Hermione Granger growled in a slurred complaint, levelling a glare at Fred. Or was it George? She'd had a little too much fire-whiskey to tell the twins apart anymore.

"I don't have your bloody key, woman!" Fred protested, attempting to act innocent and as though he hadn't taken it. Hermione knew he had. He'd claimed he needed to borrow it a few hours ago whilst complaining that he didn't want to walk all the way down to the flat he shared with George down the Alley from the Leaky Cauldron where the Halloween celebration was in full swing. Hermione had been drinking pretty heavily alongside Harry, Ginny, Luna, Ron and Neville in addition to the twins, and – knowing she'd be too inebriated for Apparting or for Floo travel - she'd booked a room at the pub for the night.

She told herself it had nothing to do with wanting to prove to Ron that she wasn't still hung up on him – something she planned to do by seducing some unsuspecting wizard into tumbling her between the sheets. Of course, that had been before she'd had nine fire-whiskeys by herself in the course of a three hour pub visit. Right now all she wanted to do want escape the gyrating, sweating, costume-clad crowd of the bar, shower the evening away and sink into a big soft – preferably empty - bed.

"You  _do_  have it! You took it so you could pee and you didn't give it back!"

"I did so," Fred, or maybe George, argued with her, his words slurring and his eyes unfocused. "I put it on the bar while you were ordering your last drink. Oi, Angelina!"

Hermione growled under her breath as the Weasley twin she'd been conversing with bounded away upon spotting the girl that both twins were dating. She did vaguely recall putting her hand on a key upon the bar while she'd been getting her last drink. Well, she had a wand, and she doubted that Tom would be pleased if she told him she'd lost her key. So Hermione would just have to break into her own room.

She didn't bother excusing herself or telling her friends where she was going. They would try to talk her into another drink. And she didn't think she'd stay conscious if she had anymore. Melting into the crowd, Hermione made for the stairs to her room without looking back, even when she vaguely heard someone call her name.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

"Levicorpus!" a voice hissed just as he exited the bathroom and Thorfinn Rowle gave an inarticulate growl as he was jerked into the air by his ankles, his towel unwinding from his hips and revealing his stark naked body to the intruder.

"Fuck!" he snapped, twisting to try and see who was responsible for this mess as all the blood began to rush to his head – which was already spinning from the copious amount of fire-whiskey he'd ingested.

"What are you doing in my room?" a female voice asked and Thorfinn watched a woman in a pair of spiked black heels and a kitten costume stalk towards him.

Or attempt to, anyway.

She stumbled slightly in those shoes of hers. She was wearing a mask over her face, but the leather cat-suit she wore made him want to run his hands all over her body.

"Let me down, Kitten," he practically purred at the woman, suddenly feeling less inconvenienced about her seeing him naked, whoever she was behind that mask.

"How did you get into my room?" she demanded, stomping closer even as she kicked her heels from her feet, muttering a curse about irresponsible footwear and something about red-headed vixens who would pay for their crimes.

"I have no idea," Thorfinn admitted. "Woke up in here half an hour ago, still drunk, so I imagine someone stuck me in here to sleep off the whiskey."

He'd bet he knew who too. Fucking Dolohov and his sticky fucking fingers.

"You're naked," the witch informed him, stopping suddenly when she was looking his rapidly-hardening cock right in the face.

Thorfinn snorted at her words.

"I am," he agreed. "Care to join me?"

You're upside-down," she pointed out as though that were her only objection to his suggestion.

"Not if you let me down," he replied, suspecting she was far drunker than she looked.

"Oh. Um… right. Liberacorpus," she said, flicking her wand at him.

Thorfinn knew there was no graceful way to land when the spell released his ankles and he crumpled to the ground in a heap, growling slightly at the sudden ache in his head.

"Do you greet every naked male this way, Kitten, or am I just special?" he asked her, getting to his feet to stare down at the little witch he had every intention of seducing.

"You broke into my room," she pointed out. "What did you expect me to do? Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?"

She tilted her head to one side, unsettling the cat-mask and kitten ears she wore.

"Dunno, love," he smirked. "I can't see your face. Mind if I help you out of your costume?"

"Oh," she said, and she reached for her mask while Thorfinn reached for the zipper that currently held her breasts in their leather prison.

She squeaked as the zip rasped on the way down and Thorfinn smirked to find she'd forgone lingerie beneath the suffocating leather. He was a little too distracted by her full breasts with their rosy pink nipples, already pebbling in the cool air of the room, to notice her now-mask-free face for several long moments.

"Erm… you're still naked," she said quietly. "I'm sure I know you from somewhere."

"Thorfinn," he offered her a grin even as he reached out with both hands to cup her breasts.

She hissed between her teeth at the touch but didn't pull away.

"Thorfinn… I know that name from somewhere," she muttered, and Thorfinn lifted his gaze to her face.

His eyes widened and he wondered if he'd just been stupefied when he looked into none other than the face of Hermione Granger. Bloody hell, but the witch had grown into a stunner. Fuck. He was so screwed. The minute she put together that he was a Death Eater who'd tortured her friend and burned down the hut of her favourite teacher, she was going to skin him alive for touching her.

"Well, if it isn't Hermione Granger," he drawled at her, unable to help himself. He found himself stepping closer to her, kind of liking the way she stepped back as he invaded her personal space.

"You know me, then?" she muttered. "I know you're name from somewhere… wait… Thorfinn… as in  _Rowle_?"

Her eyes jerked up to his face when the low and predatory laugh slipped between his lips while he walked her back until she collided with the bedroom door.

"Hello, Kitten," he smirked at her as the alcohol induced fog seemed to clear in her eyes.

Her gaze darted between his blue eyes, his damp blonde hair where it hung around his shoulders, the faded and scarred Dark Mark on his forearm, and his rock-hard cock before dancing back again. She gulped as she stared up at him while he pressed his hands to the door either side of her head, effectively trapping her in the cage of his arms. He'd know this little witch anywhere. In her first year, she'd made his final year at Hogwarts a pain in the arse. She'd ratted him out after catching him mid blowjob in the library and he'd hounded her all bloody year in retaliation.

"Rowle," she whispered, her eyes narrowing slightly before her gaze darted down the length of his body to his cock once more when he stepped close enough that he could prod her with it through the leather she wore.

"Miss me, Baby-girl?" he asked, unable to keep the predatory tone from his voice or the lustful glow from his gaze.

"No," she retorted. "What are you doing in my hotel room?"

"Told you. Woke up in here. Probably Toshka's doing. He know you're staying here?" Thorfinn raised an eyebrow at the witch, his eyes sliding down to drink in the wanton sight of her, breasts exposed, back pressed to the wall, eyes wide and her expression torn between angry and lustful.

"Probably," she admitted. "Considering he's been stalking me since the end of the war."

"Before then," he corrected her. "Since you survived his curse at the Department of Mysteries. Though I see he left you a souvenir."

Thorfinn eyed the purple flame marks that adorned her rib-cage below her breasts, looking more like an intriguing tattoo more than the result of a wretched curse meant to kill her.

"He's thoughtful that way," she replied coolly. "Is there a reason you're naked in my hotel room now that you know who I am?"

He was certain his grin was pure wickedness.

"Because I'm going to get you naked too, Kitten," he promised her in a low, husky voice, pressing even closer so that she'd be able to feel the heat coming off his cock, even through the leather of her outfit.

"I'm all sweaty and sticky," she told him, as though that might deter him.

Thorfinn smirked when that seemed to be the only excuse she could come up with as to why he shouldn't strip her naked and hard-fuck her into the door, the floor, the bed and every other surface in the room.

"Not yet, Baby-girl," he chuckled. "But real soon, you will be."

He tangled a hand into her loose curls and tipped her head to receive his kiss before he swooped down to kiss the lips of the witch he would admit to having daydreamed about more than once in the past. Thorfinn half expected her to pull away and slap him right across the face. He didn't expect the low moan of delight that tore from her, but he swallowed it greedily as he slipped his tongue in to smooth along the length of hers.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

He tasted like fire felt. Hot and cold and sinful and heady all at once and Hermione knew she was lost. She didn't have the strength to fight him off or push him away. Not when he looked like he'd been carved from pure gold, a perfect creation of the gods. Not when his tongue tasted of whiskey, and need, and a desire so profound it rocked through her and heated her body as though she'd just stepped into a line of dragon-flame. If it weren't for the hand he'd tangled into her hair, Hermione suspected her knees would've given out, the feel of his tongue against hers was so sinfully good.

Her core throbbed and Hermione knew three things in that moment. The first was that it had been entirely too long since she'd been laid. The second was that she'd had entirely too much to drink. The third was that the first two things meant she was going to shag Thorfinn Rowle; Death Eater, school tormenter, and all around pervert.

Whimpering in the back of her throat, Hermione gripped his chiselled torso tightly, pulling him closer to her, wanting more. He laughed against her lips even as he began peeling her out of the cat-suit Ginny had forced her into in an attempt to make Ron see what a fool he was for ending their relationship several months earlier. She'd been sour about it for months, but one kiss from Thorfinn Rowle was all it took for her to forget all about Ronald Weasley and his too-small cock.

No, right then all she could think about was getting out of her costume and getting Rowle so deep inside her, she might never dislodge him. Especially given the size of the tool he was prodding her with so insistently. Smoothing her hands over his tight washboard abs, heading south, Hermione whined in protest when he broke the kiss to force the leather from her body until it cleared her hips before he lifted her right out of the restrictive fabric, one arm scooping around her waist, and the other tugging at the fabric until it left her body.

Interrupted in her quest to wrap her small hand around his large cock, Hermione curled one arm around the back of his neck and her legs around his narrow hips when he leaned into her once more. He kissed her mouth like he wanted to devour her; like he couldn't get enough of her; like he could survive on her taste alone. Still trying to reach his cock, Hermione burrowed her hand between their bodies.

"Having fun, Baby-girl?" Rowle growled against her neck when he broke their kiss to sear a line of nips and licks along the length of her jaw before kissing her neck.

"Not yet," Hermione replied just before she managed to grasp her hand around the thick length of his cock.

"Bloody hell, witch," he groaned, his mouth on her neck as she began working her hand up and down the throbbing length of him. Hermione moaned out loud when he slid his hand between them and burrowed two fingers deep inside her, beginning to pulse them in time with her movements.

"Oh, Gods," Hermione moaned twisting until she could kiss him again.

Her tongue stroked his surely, hungrily, demanding more of the fiery taste of him, more of the passion she knew the hulking Viking of a wizard was capable of. He gave it. He kissed her back with every drop of lust and passion he had in him until Hermione couldn't breathe. She couldn't think straight. All she could do was feel his fingers inside of her; taste his tongue against her own, and learn every inch of the cock in her hand.

He worked his fingers inside her with practiced ease, pushing her towards that hill that she knew he'd delight in shoving her from. When she was on the precipice, Hermione used her grip on his cock to pull him closer, aligning their bodies and silently commanding he fill her.

"You want it, Baby-girl?" he asked, his voice husky in her ears and filling her with even more need.

"Yes," Hermione told him.

"How bad?" he smirked at her, pulling back far enough to look at her face and to note the way their bodies were aligned, just waiting to be joined.

"Don't be a git, Rowle," Hermione hissed, arching away from the wall until the first glorious inch of him slid inside her.

He didn't seem capable of not being an ass. That much was clear when he thrust shallowly, just that first inch tormenting her dripping, throbbing core and making her crazy.

"Tell me how much you want it, Granger," he commanded her.

Hermione could tell he thought she would back down from the challenge.

"If you don't give it to me, Rowle," she threatened darkly. "I'll cut it off and beat you to death with it. Stop being a Merlin cursed tease and fuck me until this door falls off its hinges, or get the hell out of my hotel room."

She dug her nails into his skin for good measure and arched into him again, drawing him a little deeper.

"Holy fuck, Princess," he groaned. "You're sexy as hell when you're threatening violence and so wet for me."

Hermione opened her mouth to tell him to fuck off if he was just going to torture her but before she could utter a word he drove into her hard and high, hitting parts of her that she was sure had never been touched. His size stretched her deliciously right up to the point of bordering on pain. Hermione might've been mortified at the strangled, pleasure-filled moan that tore from her throat at the feel of being impaled upon his cock, if it weren't for the fact that being so just completely wiped her mind of any and every coherent thought.

Sweet Merlin, nothing had ever felt so good. Hermione hissed when he slowly withdrew, listening to the low groan he emitted when she clamped her pelvic muscles tight, trying to keep him inside of her.

"Fuck, don't do that or I won't last, Baby-girl," he muttered into her neck, nuzzling into her and nipping her flesh tantalizingly.

Hermione was beyond words. She couldn't think with him inside her. She couldn't speak. She could only whimper needily and arch into him when he drove in deep again. He built to a rhythm quickly, stroking her, impaling her, changing her life in a way she couldn't even explain. Hermione felt the heat inside of her begin to coil, threatening to snap free.

"Gods," she whimpered, clutching at him desperately, trying to find some anchor to clutch as he shoved her toward the turbulent, swirling sea of bliss she could feel waiting to receive her.

The waves crested and fell, rocking through her as surely as he rocked into her. Hermione nipped at his collarbone, her hands fisting in his tangle of blond hair where it fell, still damp, about his broad shoulders. His hissed between his teeth when she clamped down on him tight, trying desperately to keep from drowning as another wave crested within her, knowing it was going to swallow her whole and pull her under.

"Scream for me, Princess," Thorfinn's Rowle's voice was low and coarse against her ear, his stubble scratching deliciously against her sensitive skin, his teeth scraping her earlobe lightly as he drew it into his mouth.

Hermione did.

"Always such a good girl," Rowle tormented her as her orgasm slammed into her hard, tearing the sound he'd demanded right from her chest and flooding her body with bliss.

His movements grew jerky as her body wrung pleasure from him, clamping and clenching, spasming delightfully.

"Bloody hell, witch," he grunted when he lost the battle not to join her amid her blissful ocean.

Hermione felt a slow smirk crawl across her lips. She hadn't felt so good in months. Everything that had been bothering her seemed distant and forgotten amid the fog of drunkenness and the haze of orgasmic ecstasy. She leaned against him, uncaring about the way the hardwood of the door bit into her back, grating against her spine. Uncaring that he had been a Death Eater. Uncaring that the first time she'd had sex with anyone who wasn't Ronald Weasely, it had been with a man like Thorfinn Rowle.

He pressed lazy kisses to the side of her neck as he caught his breath before pushing away from the door, taking her with him.

"Where are you taking me?" Hermione asked, rather pleased by the feel of their bodies still joined.

" _Now_  you're all sweaty and sticky," he chuckled. "I plan to fuck you again in the shower until you're not. And then I'm going to make you sweaty and sticky all over again in the bed."

"Do you have that kind of virility?" she challenged, leaning back in his hold slightly to smile down into his handsome face.

His smirk was wicked in return.

"Guess we'll find out."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Hermione woke to the feel of a man crawling between her thighs. Groaning softly at being woken at all when she'd had next to no sleep - thanks to one utterly insatiable Viking - Hermione made a half-hearted noise of protest. She  _couldn't_  do it. Not again. Not when he had such a huge cock. Not when she'd been celibate so long before that night that she hurt in places she hadn't even realised existed.

A low chuckle of wicked amusement emitted from the blond git crawling between her legs. When he ducked his head under the covers and kissed his way over her chest, across her stomach and then lower, Hermione sighed, resigned to the fact that she was obviously going to have to come again. It may kill her, but she knew he would make her.

"Do you never rest?" Hermione protested weakly as he used his shoulders to nudge her thighs further apart. "Oh, Gods!"

His hot mouth and wicked tongue practically cured her of what little hangover she might've been suffering. She was sure she'd sweated the rest of the alcohol she'd consumed last night right out of her system, so she felt surprisingly good, considering how much she'd had to drink before landing herself squarely on Thorfinn Rowle's cock. He lapped at her lazily, taking his time about working her towards orgasm again. Hermione kind of hated him for that. He just eased her into it, waking her up so nicely, yet asking so much of her fatigued body at the same time.

"Rowle, I'm gonna..." Hermione sighed, one hand peeling back the sheets to better see him.

His bright blue eyes watched her over the rim of her pelvic bone and Hermione's insides squirmed delightfully at the lustful heat in his gaze even as she arched under his wicked tongue. Her free hand tangled in the sheets and Hermione looked away from his intense gaze, her head tossing from side to side at the onslaught of pleasure.

"Hermione, are you... oh, my Merlin!" Ginny Weasley's voice suddenly intruded on the moment and Hermione hissed in surprise, her fist tightening in Thorfinn hair even as her thighs attempted to snap closed to protect her dignity.

"Oi!" Thorfinn protested, chuckling even as he pried her legs apart just far enough to continue right on licking her core and driving her mad.

"Bloody hell, Hermione! I'm so sorry! I should've knocked," Ginny was saying from the doorway.

"Ginny, get out!" Hermione hissed at her friend where she was leaning in the doorway.

"Who are you shagging?" Ginny asked, rather than following the directive.

"Weasley?" Thorfinn asked, sliding his hand between Hermione's legs and slipping his fingers into her abused sex, making Hermione groan. "Either get in here sit on Granger's face, or kindly fuck off."

Hermione cried out when he kept on working her over before shoving her into orgasm with Ginny right there in the doorway and looking gobsmacked.

"Oi, Ginny, what's taking so bloody long? Where's Hermione?" Ronald Weasley's voice asked and if it weren't for the fact that Thorfinn Rowle was particularly gifted between the sheets, Hermione was certain she'd have died of shame.

Especially when Rowle picked that moment to crawl back up her body, his lips closing over one of her nipples even as he thrust into her surely, catching the tail end of her orgasm and making a high-pitched whine tear from her throat. She'd have been grateful to Rowle for protecting her modesty when his burly frame hid her petite one from view,  _if_  her ex-boyfriend and her best female friend weren't in the doorway.

"What the fuck is this?" Ron demanded. "Hermione? Is that Hermione? Seriously? Who the hell is she… she's shagging…. Hermione!"

"Get out!" Hermione shouted at the siblings.

"Why bother?" Ron demanded, sounding disgusted. "You obviously enjoy fucking for an audience. What's two more?"

"An audience?" Hermione squeaked, stilling against Rowle as he ceased his driving rhythm to glance around the room in concern regarding Ron's words and trying to determine his meaning.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Rowle growled suddenly, his eyes darting back to Hermione.

He looked like he knew things were about to go to shit and Hermione felt her stomach clench in concern. Twisting her head on the pillow, Hermione looked in the direction Thorfinn had glanced and she felt the pit drop out of her stomach when she locked eyes with Antonin Dolohov reclining in the armchair across the room. His dark eyes were locked onto her as Thorfinn impaled her on his huge cock, pinning her to the mattress and preventing her immediate escape. He looked hungry, as though he'd only just woken up recently, but like he was only too thrilled by what he'd opened his eyes to.

"Off," Hermione demanded of the wizard ravishing her, feeling a wretched swoop of fear and sickening curiosity inside her stomach. "Get off."

"Trust me, Princess, I'm trying. It's not going so well with all these interruptions. Don't much go in for exhibitionism, see?" Thorfinn replied dryly, staring into her face and pulling an expression of slight discomfort, obviously not thrilled to find Antonin watching them or to have the Weasley siblings filling the doorway.

"I meant get off me," Hermione hissed at him, slapping at one of his bare shoulders and trying to cover her boobs with her free hand, trying to hide them from view so Dolohov wouldn't be able to see.

"Do you trust me?" Thorfinn asked rather than doing as she asked, his cock twitching impatiently inside her and making Hermione's eyes cross momentarily.

"No," Hermione retorted.

"Alright, good. Hang on, Baby-girl," he murmured as though she'd said yes instead of no before leaning down to cover more of her body with his own. His hand slipped under the pillow and scooped up both their wands as he secured her to him more firmly, his chest covering her own and protecting her from view.

Hermione squeaked in surprise a moment later when there was a jerk behind her navel and she realised Thorfinn Rowle had just apparated with her, his cock still buried deep inside her. The breath rushed from her lungs when she landed on something soft – softer than the bed at the Leaky Cauldron.

"Where are we?" Hermione demanded, blinking at the wizard and trying to get her bearings. Apparating mid-coitus was an extremely alarming feeling.

"My place. You alright?" he asked. "You didn't get splinched, did you? I've never apparated mid-fuck before."

"I don't think so," Hermione said. "It's a little hard to concentrate on the rest of my body with you doing that."

Thorfinn smirked at her as he picked up his rhythm once more.

"Is a bit, isn't it?" he agreed, chuckling wickedly at her as he drove himself into her deep and strong, making her thoughts scatter again immediately.

"Wait… wait," Hermione muttered when he lowered his mouth to her neck and began kissing her there, driving her wild. "We just left… and Dolohov was… and Ron and Ginny saw… and, oh Gods, don't stop, Thorfinn."

The wizard's amused laughter was pure sin as she arched underneath him, temporarily forgetting her cares regarding being walked in on. It was hard to think with him stroking her special spot so skilfully.

"Merlin, you're so bloody tight, witch," he muttered against her neck, fucking her harder until Hermione saw stars behind her closed eyelids.

"Thorf… Thorfinn… I'm… I'm gonna… ungh," Hermione panted, a low moan of ecstasy tearing from her throat when her insides clamped a short time later, her bare heels digging into his bare ass. She careened into orgasm quickly, her ravaged body so attuned to his touch after spending all night shagging him in more positions than she'd ever tried in her life that she broke once more.

"Fuck!" Rowle hissed between his teeth when Hermione dug her nails into his shoulders and buried her lips against his throat as she flew into the sea of bliss, dragging him in along with her.

The feel of his seed splashing against her womb, his cock emptying in heavy wet spurts, made Hermione sigh contentedly even as he collapsed on top of her. He was heavy but Hermione rather liked the feel of being so completely overwhelmed by him for a few minutes as he caught his breath. Kissing his neck a final time, Hermione carded her fingers through his long blond hair where it hung loose about the two of them.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Thorfinn Rowle groaned as he rolled off the little witch a few minutes later. His whole body ached from their exertions throughout the night and he wasn't sure his cock would grow hard again even if he used potions to try and make it. Not after the abuse it had received as she rode him hard and let him fuck her into every flat surface they could find in that hotel room. To make matters worse, his hangover was making itself known, despite sweating out most of the booze throughout the night, and his head ached a bit.

"I need food," he complained at the witch who'd rolled with him and was now using the hollow of his shoulder as a pillow, her fingers trailing absently through his golden chest hair.

"I need sleep," she replied softly. "And we need to discuss the fact that we had an audience this morning."

"Not without food," he warned. "Come on, kitchen's this way."

Groaning again as he sat up, Thorfinn went in search of pants while the little witch stretched languidly on the middle of his bed. The sight she made had his traitorous cock twitching as though entertaining notions of  _another_  round and he decided right then that the bloody thing didn't know what was good for it. Shaking his head and thinking about wretched things to keep the snake inside his trousers from rearing its head again, Thorfinn bent and scooped up a shirt he'd discarded on the floor before tossing it to the witch.

He'd apparated them without stopping to think that it would leave her without clothing.

"Do you have my wand?" she asked, catching the shirt and pulling it on over her head. It dwarfed her petite frame, falling to mid-thigh and hiding her delectable figure from view.

"By the pillows," he nodded in the direction of her weapon.

"Everything else is still at the hotel," she grumbled.

"You'd have preferred to stay there with the ginger idiots ogling my arse and Toshka looking like he might crawl into bed and join us?" Thorfinn asked, quirking an eyebrow at the witch as she got up and followed him toward the kitchen.

"I'd rather know how he got into the room in the first place," she retorted, her eyes scanning the kitchen of his flat with interest while Thorfinn used his wand to get some breakfast cooking and a pot of tea brewing.

"Pretty sure he's the one who put me in your room in the first place," Thorfinn said. "And he's a Curse Breaker when he's not being hounded for being an ex-Death Eater. I hardly think any of the common charms on a hotel room to keep people out would really stop him from getting into wherever he wants to be."

"Yes, which is why I had to move four times after the bastard was first released from Azkaban before making myself the Secret Keeper of the Fidelius charms on my flat," Hermione replied dryly. "Though I also recall losing my key last night, so it's possible he found it."

"Probable that he found it," Thorfinn corrected her, knowing how close an eye his friend tended to keep on the little witch before him. "If you dropped it, he'd have picked it up."

"Isn't he your friend?" she asked. "Won't he be upset with you for shagging me? He used to send Ron cursed objects and death threats when Ron and I were together."

"Actually those weren't aimed at him because he was seeing you," Thorfinn said, slanting a glance at the curly-haired witch when she clambered up onto his kitchen counter. "He uh… well, I don't know if you know…."

"Dolohov figured out Ron was cheating on me?" Granger sighed, looking bored.

Thorfinn nodded. "After that I was hard pressed keeping the git from murdering your ex-fiancé every bloody day. Toshka's very… protective of you, Granger."

"Protective?" she scoffed. "He breaks into my flat and stares at me while I sleep. Or he follows me around whenever I'm in public. I have no idea how the man maintains a job given that he's always stalking me."

"He's a freelance Curse Breaker," Thorfinn shrugged his shoulders. "The goblins at Gringotts won't hire him because he was a Death Eater. Not after what happened with the Dark Lord and that lot after you and your friends pinched whatever he had in the Lestrange vault. That, and Toshka's got sticky fingers, so they don't trust him."

"No?" she quirked an eyebrow. "An ex-Azkaban inmate is a thief? What  _is_  the world coming to that even the criminals are criminals?"

Thorfinn rolled his eyes at her. "You realise I'm one of those ex-Azkaban inmates, yeah?"

"I realise that, yes," she nodded accepting the cup of tea he handed her and not looking at all like she cared that she'd potentially insulted him. "What is it you do for work anyway? More to the point, how did you two even get let out of prison in the first place?"

"We were both a part of that group that the Ministry deemed not dangerous enough to continue posing a threat to society with the Dark Lord gone," he replied.

"You do realise you and Dolohov are two of the most volatile Death Eaters still living, don't you?" she asked. "What was the Ministry thinking letting you two loose? You lose your temper and set things on fire. Dolohov is a murderer."

"So are you," he reminded her coolly. "And so am I. Crimes of War carry a different sentence and you know it, otherwise you and your little Order buddies would have been sitting in those cells right next to all of us Death Eaters."

"Some of us probably should been," she replied with a shrug. "But I still don't see how any of you potentially being less dangerous than others earns you your freedom."

"It's not exactly freedom, Princess," he rolled his eyes at her. "We have to check in with the Ministry every week and have our wand activity monitored for potential misbehaviour. We're all on parole. We were also all selected because we're the last male descendant of our bloodlines. Meaning that unless names like Rowle, Dolohov, Lestrange, and a number of others are to be allowed to die out in the male line – something the Ministry doesn't like to see happening – we all have to carry on our bloodlines prolifically. Though we were all warned that if it would be investigated if we all only breed with pureblood witches from families affiliated with the Dark Lord. We were given express instruction to carry on our bloodlines with half-bloods, muggleborns or muggles."

"Well, don't look at me," she held up her hands. "I don't care how good a shag you are, I don't do children."

"What?" he asked, frowning at her. "You – Hermione Granger, warrior for the Order and brightest witch of you age – don't plan on ever having kids?"

"Why does everyone say it like that?" the witch sighed, shooting him an annoyed look. "Everyone always hassles me about having bloody children. It's why Ron and I broke up. He wants an army of children and I can't give them to him."

Thorfinn narrowed his eyes on the way she said that final sentence.

"Can't?" he clarified. "Or won't?"

She glanced up at him sharply, a frown marring her brow. A number of expressions flashed across her face at his nosy question and Thorfinn suspected it was a touchy subject.

"Can't," she said after a long silence. "I can't have children. Dolohov's curse did something to me internally that I'm told means I will be almost completely incapable of carrying a child to term  _if_  – and it's a very big if – I can fall pregnant at all. Which has yet to occur. Ron and I tried for a few years after the War ended but it didn't happen."

She shrugged her shoulders as though it didn't matter to her.

"You wanted them though?" he asked. "Kids?"

She shrugged again.

"Yes and no," she admitted. "I wanted them eventually. After finishing school and developing my career. After getting myself set up and comfortable in my life. After finding someone to settle down with. For me, children were always on the 'someday' list."

"You were engaged to be married with Weasley," he pointed out. "Shouldn't they have been a little closer than 'someday'?"

Her expression pinched further.

"Yes, well, look how that turned out," she snapped. "He finds out I might not be able to have kids and rather than exploring the idea of adoption or having the decency to discuss his concerns with me, he just starts shagging other witches behind my back. Now I almost wish that one of Dolohov's cursed objects had done something to the bastard."

Thorfinn smirked at her answer.

"And why am I even telling you any of this anyway, Rowle? You're an arsehole and as soon as I'm fed, I'm leaving."

"Oh,  _that's_ nice," he scoffed at her. "I'm sure you'll have such a good time of finding some wizard willing to put up with that snark, let alone consider adopting with you when you've got that kind of attitude."

"Oh, bite me, Thorfinn," she snapped, picking an old copy of the  _Daily Prophet_  from his bench, scrunching it into a ball and lobbing it at him.

Thorfinn dodged the missile even as he stepped across the kitchen towards her, seized hold of her hips and pressed himself between her thighs once more before doing just as she'd ordered. Nuzzling his face into her neck, he bit down just hard enough to smart, making her hiss in surprise and annoyance.

"Get off, would you?" she shoved at his shoulders, squirming in his hold even as her legs coiled around his back and kept him prisoner against her. "I didn't say you could have me again."

"As though I do what you say, witch?" he rolled his eyes, nibbling her earlobe and feeling his masochistic cock stir at the idea of another round.

"I don't think I can do it again," she admitted even as she tipped her head to allow him better access to her neck, her hands smoothing down over his robust shoulders and her nails scratching lightly against his back.

"You can," he replied smugly. "I can make you."

"I know you  _could._  I meant that I don't think I could survive it," she replied huskily and Thorfinn practically purred at her easy acknowledgement of his skill. "Everything down there aches after that last go."

"Yeah," he sighed against her neck. "Me too."

"And I'm angry at you anyway," she replied, though she was tangling her hands into his hair.

"What did I do?" he asked, pulling his face back to smirk at her.

"You brought up uncomfortable topics and pissed me off," she said. "And you're just a git, in general, you know? So it's hardly surprising that the very sight of you annoys me."

"Are you always this charming, Princess?" Thorfinn deadpanned at her, raising one eyebrow even as he slowly lowered his mouth towards hers, intent on snogging the little vixen again.

"Yes," she retorted, stretching up to close the distance between them and kissing him softly on the lips.

Thorfinn smirked against her mouth when a little whimper of sound escaped her as he slid his hands under her bare arse and tugged her to the edge of the bench. Despite her protests of soreness and despite his own aches, his cock was demanding that he take her again, one more time.

"I can't," she protested when he used his free hand to free his cock from the trousers he'd donned.

"But you want to," he replied knowingly even as she burrowed her face into his neck and began kissing his flesh hungrily.

"That's not the point," she argued. "Obviously my body doesn't know what's good for it."

Thorfinn didn't need any further encouragement before he pried her thighs further apart and aligned himself at their junction. She whimpered in the back of her throat over the slight sting in the abused flesh there and Thorfinn was fairly certain he'd pulled all the muscles in his legs and his abs already from the way they protested the position, but neither of those things stopped him from sinking into her hot, slick welcome.

They both groaned at the feel of their bodies joined once more and Thorfinn took his time with her, trying to draw it out, knowing he might never get the chance to shag her again once she walked out the door. The breakfast he'd been cooking was beginning to burn, but he was too lost to the tight heat of the witch in his arms to care. She tipped her head back as he rocked into her surely, her eyes closed, her expression alight with ecstasy. Merlin, she was a sight when he fucked her, Thorfinn thought to himself, watching her wind tighter and tighter.

Lost to the ache in his muscles and the wet heat of her body gripping his, Thorfinn missed the pop of apparition as someone else joined them in his flat. When Granger tangled her hands in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers once more, he couldn't have cared less when someone removed the burning breakfast from the stove with a scrape of metal on metal. When her tongue slid deliciously against his while her pussy began to throb and pulse around his cock, making her groan as though the exertion were painful even as she was overcome with pleasure, Thorfinn wouldn't have cared even if they were fucking in the middle of the busy Ministry with everyone in the world watching them.

She tore from his lips to emit a soft whine of completion as he brought her to orgasm again and Thorfinn felt like his whole body was on fire, pulling energy all the way up from his toes to explode out the end of his cock and fill her once more.

"Fuck," she groaned softly, her head tipped back in pleasure as she took everything he had to give her.

"Bloody hell," Thorfinn sighed when the heat inside of him lulled once more, leaving him spent and more than a little weak in the knees.

She leaned against him, resting her cheek against his shoulder, her hands gripping him snugly. Thorfinn leaned into her too, breathing in the scent of her skin as he did so and noticing that though she smelled somewhat like him and like the cheap motel soap, underneath that she smelled like jasmine and lemons.

As the nut-blowing induced fog began to clear from his mind, Thorfinn slowly became aware of the soft sounds of someone else moving about the kitchen. The soft chink of china on the breakfast bar. The scrape of cutlery against crockery. The vague sounds of someone chewing. He felt a twist in the pit of his stomach when Granger tensed slowly in his hold, clearly hearing the sounds, too.

He didn't have to look to know who it was. The only other person with access to Thorfinn's flat was Antonin Dolohov because the twisted bastard lived with Thorfinn. Sighing against Granger's hair, Thorfinn slowly opened his eyes to glance over at the man leaning on the counter and eating the slightly burned bacon and eggs Thorfinn had been cooking before he'd gotten side-tracked.

"Toshka?"

The man was watching the two of them as though they were some sort of theatre display rather than his flatmate and the object of his… fascination. As though they were telling him some sort of enthralling story that he needed to pay full attention to in order to understand, rather than that they were his best mate and the witch he'd tried to kill ten years ago.

"Do you have no shame?" Granger demanded of the Russian wizard, pulling back from Thorfinn slightly to better glare at the man. "No sense of common decency?"

Antonin didn't bother speaking, though his lips twitched as though he were holding back a smirk of amusement.

"What is he doing here?" Granger asked, turning to look up at Thorfinn himself. "I thought you apparated us here to get away from having an audience."

"If you don't want me to watch you fuck,  _Zaichik,_ " Antonin drawled at her, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Don't do it in my kitchen."

"Urgh, he lives here?" Granger asked, pulling a face both at the Russian endearment and the idea of him speaking to her.

"Well, yeah," Thorfinn admitted, pulling out of her and tucking himself back inside his trousers while the witch looked disgusted and began fussing to be let down from the bench where she was perched.

"Right. Well, on that delightful note, I no longer have an appetite. So, thanks for the memories, Rowle. I'm out of here," she said, slipping from the bench to stand on her own two feet once more.

Thorfinn watched the way her knees buckled slightly, trying to give way on her thanks to the mind-blowing sex. He didn't bother trying to protest her departure or trying to tell her she should stay for breakfast.

"Before you go," Toshka piped up and Granger speared him with a look so cold it was a wonder the bastard didn't get frostbite, not that he seemed concerned by her hatred. "Mind giving me another look at that scar on your ribs,  _Zaichik_?"

Granger didn't deign to answer him. From what Thorfinn had heard about the interactions between Antonin and the muggleborn witch, she never spoke to him. She simply hated him. Toshka seemed to prefer when he got a reaction from her, so a hex in the face or something equally rude would make his day, but Granger didn't give him that. She simply ignored his request, reached for her wand where she'd dropped it on the bench during their romp and nodded her head at Thorfinn in farewell.

She Disapparated with a crack and Thorfinn shook his head to himself before glaring at his friend.

"What?" Antonin asked, raising one eyebrow as though genuinely confused by Thorfinn's displeased expression.

"What is your fucking hang up on that witch?" Thorfinn demanded, "You obviously don't give a shit that I fucked her, so you can't be in love with her. What's your obsession?"

Antonin smirked at him crookedly and forked another mouthful of eggs into his mouth, chewed and swallowed before he answered.

"Tell me what her scar looks like," he commanded.

"Tell me why you stalk her. And don't bullshit me," Thorfinn told him.

"Like purple flames dancing over her ribs, right?" Toshka persevered as though Thorfinn hadn't spoken. "Do they move? Could you tell?"

"I know that whatever your curse did to her, it fucked her insides up so she can't have kids," Thorfinn informed the bastard, snatching his fork and pinching a piece of charred bacon from the plate.

Antonin tipped his head to one side thoughtfully.

"There was nothing in the spell I used on her that would cause infertility," he argued, seeming intrigued. "Did her scar move like a magical tattoo?"

Thorfinn nodded his head, recalling his alarm when the scar on her ribs had indeed flickered like a flame dancing in a fireplace.

"Made her hot to touch when the scar was moving," Thorfinn told him.

"They don't move constantly?" Antonin asked, his eyebrows lifting.

"Only when she gets worked up. Or at least they started to dance when she was close to orgasm," Thorfinn told his friend.

"That's interesting. That means she's fighting the curse and the effects unless her mind is otherwise distracted," Antonin mused to himself, looking thoughtful and all the more fascinated by Hermione Granger.

"Are you going to tell me why you've been stalking her since that day at the Department of Mysteries?" Thorfinn wanted to know.

"Isn't it obvious?" Antonin asked, quirking an eyebrow at Thorfinn as though he were stupid. "The witch survived a curse that I've killed others with. Even produced non-verbally, that curse should have burned her to a crisp from the inside. But it didn't. She's a mudblood with more magical ability than most purebloods, already making her something of an unexplained variant. On top of that she survives my signature curse? She's an anomaly, Thorfinn. And I'm intrigued by anomalies."

Thorfinn shook his head at his friend, wondering again why he tolerated the bastard with his obsessive nature and his preoccupation with magical inconsistencies. Of course, the trait was part of what made Antonin Dolohov such a good Curse Breaker and what had led him to inventing his own spells and curses in the first place, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the Russian prat was obviously neurotic and needed a good beating. Thorfinn was thinking he wasn't above giving it to him.

"She's a good fuck," Thorfinn informed him, smirking as he watched the man for his reaction, trying to figure out if the idiot was in love with Granger or just intrigued by her.

"I'm not surprised," Antonin nodded, still looking thoughtful about his spell rather than like he cared that Thorfinn had shagged her. Thorfinn frowned.

"You don't care that I fucked her? I'm not going to find you standing over my bed with a knife later?"

"Why would I care that you fucked her?" Toshka wanted to know, frowning at him in return.

"You're obsessed with her. And you used to break into her place and stand over Weasley with a knife. Figured you must be in love with her and want her for yourself. I don't want to wake up to a knife at my throat because you're a weird fucker."

"Weasley was no good for her," Antonin replied coolly, his lips pursing at the mention of the red-haired wizard he loathed and not looking all that pleased by Thorfinn's accusations or assumptions.

"And you think I am?" Thorfinn asked. "Not that it matters. I doubt we'll ever see her again."

"I will," Antonin disagreed and Thorfinn figured the bastard was twisted and obviously intended to keep stalking her.

"One day she's going to curse you back, Toshka, and I can't say I'll blame her when that day comes. You're a creepy bastard at the best of times, but with her you take it even further."

"She enjoys my attention," Antonin informed him.

Thorfinn doubted that. But he kept his opinions to himself on the subject, figuring for now that he would put Hermione Granger out of his mind other than a fond memory or wank-fodder. Making for the shower, he didn't bother arguing with Toshka about the witch again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Hermione Granger was in a wretched mood two weeks after the incident at Halloween. She had managed to avoid both Ginny and Ronald Weasley by being clever enough to not give them access to her flat. After the number of times Antonin Dolohov had broken in and scared the living hell out of her, Hermione was extremely private and careful about who she gave her address to and she didn't at all like to give it out. It was obviously also a very useful way to keep any unexpected guests from dropping by her house. Harry and her parents were the only ones who'd been given access to the place and he'd been wise enough not to ask her about what the Weasley siblings had walked in on at the Leaky Cauldron.

Unfortunately, however, the Ministry was not unplottable and not under Fidelius charm and therefore the sight of Ron Weasley standing in the doorway to her office – which he wasn't supposed to be able to access within the Department of Mysteries – was not one that put her in a good mood. Indeed, these days the sight of Ron Weasley in any capacity put her in a rather foul mood. Something that was only compounding upon her already wretched day taking this unexpected and unwanted turn.

"What do you want, Ron?" Hermione demanded of the red-head, glaring up at him from her place behind her desk.

"Who were you fucking?" Ron asked by way of greeting, not even bothering with niceties anymore.

"My sex life is no longer your business, Ronald," Hermione retorted. "If that will be all, I suggest you get out of my doorway and out of my department before you get caught down here. You know you're not allowed in this part of the Ministry."

" _If that will be all_?" he parroted, raising both eyebrows in a sneering expression of disbelief. "What? You think you can just dismiss me like one of the little boot-lickers who works under you in this wretched department?"

Hermione felt anger scald through her so hot it could burn someone, radiating from her middle and working through her limbs.

"Actually, I can have you thrown right the fuck out of my office, Ronald," Hermione retorted, shooting to her feet. "You do not have any right to question me about who I've been sleeping with or what else I may or may not have been doing with my time. You gave those rights up when you started screwing your secretary, Harry's secretary, and that ridiculous sandwich-cart girl. You gave up the right to know  _anything_  about me or my choices when you walked away from our relationship."

"What the fuck else were you expecting, Hermione?" Ron demanded. "It's been more than clear since I was fucking met you that family is important to me. That family is everything to me. And you were telling me you don't want to have that."

"I was telling you I  _can't_  have that!" Hermione hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits even as she tugged the hem of her shirt from inside her skirt, jerking it up to reveal the dancing purple flames marring the soft, pale flesh over her rids.

Ron flinched at the sight of the scar that had made him uncomfortable since she'd first been cursed by Dolohov.

"How many times have you seen it?" Hermione demanded of her ex fiancé in a harsh voice, "How many times have you watched it begin to dance when I get worked up or distracted? You think I was saying I simply didn't  _want_ to have kids with you?"

She scoffed out a choked laugh.

"I loved you, you daft idiot! I'd have done anything for you. Including going against the long-held ideals I had in place pertaining to the number of children I wanted. You told me that you wanted a big family and I'd have given it to you, if I were able!" Hermione snarled. " _This_ makes it so that I physically can't! I had all the tests, Ronald. I discovered the hard way the reason that, despite never having used contraceptives since we finished school, you and I never managed to conceive life. And rather than making the effort to find any of that out – to even listen to me try to tell you why I was saying we couldn't have kids – you walked away. You walked away and crawled between some other woman's legs with no regard for my feelings."

Ron was eyeing her scar with the same look he always wore when he saw it. Fear, morbid curiosity and just a hint of disgust.

"And you dare to barge into my hotel room when I'm having sex with someone else? You dare to scoff about the idea that I must like being watched because Dolohov – the fucking bastard responsible for the problems in  _our_ relationship in the first place – happened to have broken into my bedchamber as he's done a number of times before when you've been present? You dare to storm into my office and demand to know who I was having sex with as though it's  _any_  of your business?" Hermione snapped.

"What the fuck else was I supposed to think? You certainly didn't seem to mind that Ginny was standing there gabbing in the doorway and Dolohov was watching from the couch while some other bastard licked your cunt," Ron retorted.

"It'd hardly my fault that I found someone  _much_  more sexually gifted than you, Ronald," Hermione hissed. "I was a little too preoccupied being foisted into orgasm to even  _realise_  Dolohov was in the room."

"Well, that just makes you a sloppy whore," Ron snarled, his ears turning red at her slur upon his sexual prowess.

"If I were you," a cold, steely, Russian-accented voice spoke from behind Ron, "I'd walk away, right now."

Dolohov.

Hermione narrowed her eyes even further when the dark-haired Russian wizard appeared behind Ron. She watched the way he slipped something, unnoticed by the fuming red-head, into Ron's pocket that Hermione doubted would be friendly. Part of her recognised that she should say something to prevent Ron leaving with an undoubtedly cursed object in his pocket that would likely cause him a good deal of grief when he found it. She was a little busy, however, realising that she was still baring her midriff and her scar to Dolohov's gaze. Attempting to pull her shirt down to cover it, Hermione hissed when Dolohov darted into the room, hitting her with a curse to immobilise her.

Frozen stiff in a position that still bared her midriff, Hermione watched Dolohov shove Ron unceremoniously from her office and into the corridor, despite his shouts of protest, before he closed and warded the door. Unable to move, Hermione could only watch as the creepy bastard came closer, invading her space as he was so prone to doing these days.

"If you promise not to scream or to try hexing me, I'll release the spell," he informed her amicably, even as he closed the distance between them.

Hermione felt the strangest tingle run through her as he caught the back of her neck before pushing her backwards. She didn't know what kind of immobilization spell it was, because when he touched her, he was able to manipulate her limbs as though she were a life-sized doll. Lowering her backwards even as he turned her body, Dolohov laid her back until she was lying on top of her desk.

She tried to make a sound of protest as he lifted both of her legs, placing her feet – bare thanks to the way she'd kicked her heels off – on her office chair before he pried her thighs apart and stood between them. The muffled sound of her scream drew his eyes from her midriff to his face.

"Would you relax?" he asked her. "In all the time I've been free, have I ever tried to hurt you,  _Zaichik_?"

Hermione found as he stared at her that she could blink.

"No?" he asked. "I've broken into your flat while you slept, while you fucked, while you bathed, while you danced around with that wretched beast you call a cat when you thought no one was around to see you do it. Did I ever hurt you? Did I ever force myself on you?"

Hermione's cheeks flamed crimson at the idea of having had an audience in him any number of times without her realising it.

"No," he answered his own question when she was unable to. "I didn't. So relax. I guarantee that if you and I ever fuck, it'll be completely consensual. I just want to see your scar."

Hermione stared at him, trying to rationalise his words and his behaviour. If she was being honest, in the three years he'd been free of prison, Hermione had grown rather used to him. Always in the background somewhere, lurking across the alley when she went to lunch. Riding the elevator through the Ministry with her when she couldn't exit the wretched thing quickly enough whenever she found him inside one with her. Worse, waking to the sight of him, knife or wand in hand as he leaned over Ron in the bed she'd shared with her ex-fiancé.

She remembered, in the beginning, feeling certain that he would try to hurt her; try to finish what he'd started in this very department of the Ministry ten years ago. But he never had. Indeed, his target in the home invasions instances and the recipient of the cursed objects he sent had always been Ron. When it had become obvious that he wasn't trying to kill her – given the number of times he'd had the opportunity to do so without taking them – Hermione had begun to think he must have some sort of obsession with her. That he'd developed an interest in her, sexually or romantically. And yet the number of times she had sex with other men without him flying into a rage – even when he was in the room, as he'd been with Rowle and occasionally with Ron – made her wonder about that too.

"If you're willing to cooperate, I'll lift the spell," he informed her, his eyes on her midriff once more as he unbuttoned her blouse without permission until he'd peeled the two sides of fabric apart.

Hermione stared her hatred at him as she glanced at the lacy navy bra she'd donned that morning, noticing idly that he didn't seem surprised by the sight, or like he cared one way or the other if he saw her breasts. His attention was fixed on her scar and Hermione could feel the burn of it as it danced.

"Can I touch it?" he asked, lifting his gaze to hers and Hermione felt the spell holding her immobile melt away.

"How  _dare_ you?" Hermione hissed furiously, reaching for her shirt in an attempt to close it, only to have his hands encircle her wrists and lift them above her head, pinning them to the desk either side of her head.

" _Zaichik_ , why must you make things between us so complicated?" he asked, looking amused and yet slightly frustrated with her too. "Just let me look. Finn tells me you can't conceive as a result of this thing? I've read your medical file, little mouse, and I'm betting they're wrong."

Hermione narrowed her eyes on him when he used a sticking charm to keep her hands on the desk while he released her wrists.

"What would you know about it? Blast it all, Dolohov, will you please get off me?" Hermione demanded.

"Manners?" he asked, his gaze jerking up to meet hers in shock as his eyebrows rose. "I think that's the first time you've ever been polite to me, witch. And all it took was peeling you out of your blouse."

He smirked at her wickedly, obviously enjoying the idea of tormenting her. Hermione thought seriously about spitting in his face, but she didn't think she'd be able to hit him, and would most likely end up just getting spittle all over herself.

"I'm going to touch you now," he warned her.

"As though you hadn't already?" Hermione rolled her eyes.

"That wasn't a protest," he informed her smugly before he touched her in a way she didn't at all expect.

Using only the very tips of his fingers, he traced the shape of the flames where they danced on her flesh and Hermione felt her back arch of its own accord, the magic in the scar and, indeed, her own core magic reacting to the touch as it never had before.

"Oooh," he murmured. "That was fun."

Hermione knew she let out a little whimper when he did it again, the pads of his fingers cold and light against her skin, which suddenly burned like Fiendfyre in a most pleasurable way.

"When other people touch them," he asked, his eyes widening slightly. "Does this happen?"

"No," Hermione panted. "What are you doing? Stop it. Gods, please don't do it again."

He did it again.

Hermione heard the soft whine that escaped her at the touch. There was nothing sexual about the touch or his rather clinical expression, but there was something about the feel of it that made her whole body tingle. Not entirely in a good way. This wasn't the type of feeling that led to wild sex, or even bad sex. This was the type of feeling like the tingle in one's feet and legs when standing high above the ground and preparing to jump. The tingle in one's hands before touching something new and wonderful for the first time. It was like a jolt of electricity racing through her at a very low frequency. Not enough to make her jerk away or make her hair stand on end, but enough to get her attention and make her jittery.

"Does it hurt?" Dolohov asked her, tracing his fingers over the flames which suddenly danced so high that Hermione could feel them climbing her breasts and spreading across her chest, making her heart race.

"No," Hermione shook her head, "It feels…. Like…."

"Magic," he supplied, smirking at her. "It feels like that tingle just before you unleash a spell, right?"

Hermione nodded her head, her gaze suddenly fixed upon his face. He was handsome in a sly sort of way, even with the facial hair lining his jaw and that wicked glitter in his eyes. At least ten or fifteen years older than her, he'd sacrificed some of what she expected had been extremely good looks to Azkaban. His dark hair had a slight wave to it and he wore a beard, neatly trimmed and short, but still thick. His dark eyes glittered with intelligence and intrigue when he met her gaze for a moment.

"Why?" she asked him quietly.

"You said it doesn't feel that way when anyone else touches you?" he confirmed, tracing his fingers over the marks and leaning over her.

Under ordinary circumstances, Hermione would either have been very turned on or very afraid to find herself in such a position with a man. And yet, as she stared at him while he traced the flames upon her flesh, Hermione felt strangely safe in a way she was sure she hadn't since she'd been a girl.

"Not that I've noticed," Hermione admitted. "When I get worked up, they dance, but they don't usually tingle like that."

Dolohov stared at her for several long moments.

"Do something for me, would you?" he asked.

"You mean other than lie still while you partially strip me and touch me inappropriately?" Hermione snarked.

"Don't pretend you're upset when I can practically see your brain whirring behind your eyes,  _Zaichik_ ," he told her, smirking just a little bit. "No, I want you to cast a spell while I'm touching the marks."

"You're giving me permission to hex you?" Hermione grinned cruelly at the very idea.

"That smart mouth will get you in trouble one day, witch," he replied. "Levitate a book off the shelf over there."

He nodded in the direction of her bookshelf, waving his hand over her wrist and letting her lift the limb so that it was no longer stuck to the desk. Narrowing her eyes on the wizard, Hermione did as he asked even if she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know why he wanted her to do it.

"Oooooh!" he hummed, shuddering suddenly as she called upon her magic with him still touching her scar and Hermione felt a responding shudder race through her as she levitated the book.

"What was that?" Hermione hissed, her spread legs snapping closed around the Russian's torso as he pressed closer to her.

Hermione narrowed her eyes on him when she felt an alarming hardness pressing against the junction of her thighs.

"That was the feel of your magic tugging on mine," he replied, smirking and looking rather amazed by it all. "I think that when my curse failed to affect you the way it was supposed to, the part of my magic contained in the curse latched onto your magical core somehow. The flames dance when you're distracted or angry, don't they?"

Hermione stared at him for a moment, searching his face for any hint that he was aware that he was currently holding her in a very compromising position, his fingers still caressing her skin while he pressed his erection to her lady-bits through their clothing. He didn't seem to have even noticed it. Indeed, his dark eyes were bright, glittering with curiosity and discovery.

"Generally yes, they only move when I'm furious about something, or if I'm completely distracted by something, usually sex."

"Thorfinn mentioned that they danced and grew very hot when he made you come," Antonin nodded his head, still looking clinical.

"What did he do? Rate me?" Hermione scoffed.

"I asked him about your scar," Dolohov rolled his eyes. "We don't bother rating witches anymore unless they rate on a score of one to ten as being potential mothers for our children."

Hermione blinked at his frank answer.

"You're a very odd wizard, Dolohov, do you know that?" Hermione asked him.

"I've accepted it, yes. You should too."

"Why? I have no intention of associating with you," Hermione retorted.

Dolohov had the audacity to roll his eyes.

"You associate with me every day," he corrected her. "Not only because I stalk you, either. This is literally  _my_  magic, inside of you."

"Take it back then," Hermione replied. "I'm sure you'll stop stalking me if you take it back."

He tipped his head to one side, regarding her as though she were an adorable child who'd just informed him the sky was blue.

"Why would I stop stalking you,  _Zaichik_?" he asked, looking slightly baffled but mostly patronising. "I  _enjoy_ stalking you. You intrigue me."

"I knew you were creepy," Hermione muttered, her cheeks flushing pink.

"You believe it creepy than any man could be intrigued by a beautiful woman? A powerful witch?" he tipped his head to one side.

"I meant that I knew there was a creepy reason you were stalking me," Hermione sighed. "When you never tried to hurt me, I figured you must just be romantically invested in me."

"I'm not in love with you," he laughed. "No, you simply intrigue me because you are an excursion in contradictions."

"So you're not going to remove your magic from my person and leave me alone?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

"I'm not certain I could remove it without killing you," he admitted truthfully, looking back at her scar and tracing his fingers over it again.

Hermione's body arched under the touch of its own accord.

"You said that it dances when you come, yes?" he clarified.

Hermione nodded.

"Can I see?" he asked curiously.

"Now you want to make me orgasm? And yet you're denying that you're a psycho stalker intent on ravaging me?" Hermione asked, scoffing. "Do you actually think I'm going to consent to letting you touch me?"

"I'm already touching you," he pointed out. "But if you're not comfortable with me touching you, I'd be happy to watch while somebody else brings you to orgasm. I got a decent look when you shagged Thorfinn on Samhain, but then your pet weasels interrupted and you panicked."

"Do you imagine anyone would be interested in doing that unless they were planning to sell a story to the paper about how me?" Hermione asked him seriously. "Wouldn't that look good? Exhibitionist War Heroine demands that Death Eater who tried to murder her that time be allowed to watch her fuck."

"I wasn't suggesting you fuck just anyone," Dolohov frowned at her. "You've shagged Thorfinn before. I doubt he'd mind doing it again."

"He claimed not to enjoy an audience," Hermione reminded him.

"Shouldn't have been fucking on my kitchen counter then, should he?" Dolohov laughed. "If you'd had your shirt off, I'd have gotten a good look and everything would've been fine."

Hermione stared at the man where he still stood between her spread legs, his erection pressed against the junction of her thighs. She hated herself when curiosity got the better of her.

"Of course, the easiest option would be to let  _me_  make you orgasm, but you seem rather opposed to the idea," he frowned at her like she were a perplexing puzzle.

"Gee, I can't imagine why?" Hermione scoffed.

"You're never going to let it go that I cursed you, are you?" he sighed. "I had my orders, witch, and I followed them. You were caught in the crossfire, and I served my sentence."

"You were only released because the Ministry is afraid to let too many magical bloodlines die out," Hermione reminded him. "I wouldn't put it past them to throw the lot of you back into prison once you've conceived with a witch or two."

"Neither would I," he frowned. "Which actually brings me to an idea I wanted to discuss with you."

"Can we discuss it when I have my shirt on?" Hermione asked, hating her own curiosity.

"Why?" he asked, seeming genuinely confused.

"Dolohov, I'm lying on my desk, half-naked, with a known Death Eater standing between my spread legs. To make matters worse you came in here and attacked me in front of Ron. The Aurors will likely break down the door any second now and this will end up in the papers," Hermione told him.

"You're right," he nodded. "We should continue this elsewhere."

Hermione screamed when he scooped one arm under her to support her before Disapparting them both with a sharp crack.


	4. Chapter 4

Thorfinn Rowle looked up at the sharp crack of Apparation inside his flat and nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of Antonin Dolohov clutching a half-naked Hermione Granger, her legs wrapped around his torso, her shirt open and her hair mussed.

"Dolohov!" Granger snarled, "This is not what I meant!"

"They can't interrupt us here," Toshka told the witch in a completely reasonable tone as though she were being irrational.

"Toshka?" Thorfinn asked.

"Thorfinn? Oh, I didn't know you'd be home," Antonin grinned at him, "Hermione, say hello to Thorfinn."

"Would you get off me, you crazy Russian bastard?" Granger demanded, slapping at Antonin's arms as he lowered her until her back rested against the back of the couch, "Put me down and desist with the assault, you barbarian."

"That's hardly polite," Toshka frowned at her, "Barbarian seems a little harsh. Were I a barbarian, I wouldn't be bargaining with you about options to see the effects of this while you come, witch. I'd simply make you come and get my answers."

"Toshka, what the fuck are you doing? Do you want to go back to prison?" Thorfinn asked the bastard, getting to his feet and moving towards the pair, concern gnawing at him over the state they were both in and the argument they seemed to be having.

"Of course not. Why would you ask me that?" Toshka frowned at him, "Say hello to Hermione, it's rude not to."

"Granger," Thorfinn nodded at the witch he recalled fucking so deliciously.

"Rowle," she nodded, "A little help? Your friend seems to have gone off the deep end."

"I'm not insane," Toshka assured them both, "Thorfinn, would you be open to the idea of bringing this delightful witch to orgasm while I watch? I want to see if I can remove my magic from her person."

"Your magic… you want me to fuck her for you? What? You're going to end up in prison the minute you let her go!" Thorfinn snarled, snatching hold of the Russian idiot and giving him a shake while he tried to muddle through the confusion the bastard was so good at inducing in others.

"She's not going to file a report against me," Toshka rolled his eyes, self-assured.

"What makes you so sure?" Granger challenged him, looking rather outraged and like she would very much consider pressing charges if he didn't release her.

"The wet spot you're leaving on the front of my trousers,  _Zaichik_ ," Toshka replied, smirking at the witch, "Don't think I can't feel it. You're protesting because you have a misguided sense of self-consciousness but I know you're more curious than scared right now."

"Seriously?" Thorfinn asked, raising an eyebrow at the witch wondering if it were true that she was, in fact, turned on over being manhandled and essentially assaulted by the Russian.

"He's barmy," Granger assured him.

"I  _will_  prove it, little witch," Toshka threatened her, "Do you want me to? Here, Thorfinn stick your hand in her knickers. Tell me they're not soaked."

"Dolohov!" Granger hissed, pulling one of her legs back and kicking the bastard with it.

"I don't know why you're being so disagreeable,  _Zaichik_ ," Toshka shook his head, barely budging.

Thorfinn tensed when Antonin grabbed his hand and stuck it between his body and Hermione's to press against Granger's knickers which were, in fact, damp. She gasped in indignation but made no other effort to remove Thorfinn's hand from her person or to protest the idea of being touched so intimately.

"I told you," Antonin told him, "This little mouse is entirely too curious for her own good, I'm sure, but I do need to watch her come."

"And you want my help for that?" Thorfinn asked, "Forgotten how to do it yourself because you spend too much time chasing this one instead of fucking girls?"

"She doesn't trust me," Antonin informed him, looking exasperated as though her distrust of a man who'd tried to kill her was a most perplexing conundrum, "And she has moral issues because I tried to kill her that one time. I don't know why. She fucked you even though you tried to kill her during the war too."

"Is he always like this?" Granger asked Thorfinn, eyeing Antonin as though he'd gone mad.

Thorfinn glanced at his friend, "Not always, but it's not uncommon that he gets hyper this way. Were you at work?"

"Yes," Granger nodded, "Arguing with my ex when Dolohov interrupted, put something cursed in his pocket and shoved him out of my office before assaulting me. He seems to think the flames dance because they're part of his magic, attached to mine."

She waved a finger at her open shirt and her bared midriff, not at all looking like she cared that he was seeing her partially clad body. Then again, given the things he'd done to her naked body two weeks earlier, Thorfinn supposed she knew she had nothing to be self-conscious over and logically rationalised that there was little point being embarrassed to have him see her in her bra when he'd been up close and personal with every inch of her.

"Thorfinn, it's remarkable, watch what happens when I do this," Toshka said excitedly before tracing his fingers over Granger's scar.

The witch moaned softly and arched into the touch while the flames climbed from her ribs all the way up her chest to lick at her neck.

"My magic responds to it. When she performs a spell while I touch it, I can feel her magic pulling on mine, right through my hands and out her wand," Toshka told him, his eyes bright with an almost manic gleam in his excitement over his discovery.

"You realise that you're assaulting her, don't you Antonin?" Thorfinn asked him seriously, pulling his hand from Granger's knickers – realising suddenly that he'd been cupping her cunt the whole time and she hadn't protested – to grab his friend by the shoulders and give him another shake.

"I…" Antonin frowned at him for a moment, his thoughts obviously having run away from him in the excitement of his discovery.

He glanced down at Granger, sprawled awkwardly over the back of their couch, eyeing his own hands upon her ribs, her shirt open, her legs around him, her expression exasperated and perhaps a little worried.

"Am I hurting you,  _Zaichik?_ " the man asked the little witch, his voice lowering to a soft murmur of concern.

Granger opened her mouth to answer before frowning slightly.

"Not hurting me, no," she admitted truthfully, "Worrying me a little, yes. And the Ministry is likely going to raise an alarm if Ron reports what you did."

"Not if he sticks his hand in his pocket," Toshka disagreed, smirking suddenly.

"Shit. What did you give that prick this time, Toshka?" Thorfinn asked before glancing at Granger, "Did you see what he put in there?"

Granger shook her head.

"It was just a hexed ball that will give him a crippling erection for about six hours and cause him to spend those six hours unable to fantasise about anything other than goats," Toshka waved away their concern.

Thorfinn blinked and he watched the way Granger's lips twitched before she began to giggle at the very idea.

"And if he doesn't put his hand in his pocket before raising the alarm?" Granger asked, giggling.

"He will," Toshka rolled his eyes, "I put it in the pocket where he keeps his wand. And I took his wand."

He pulled the wand he spoke of from his pocket and held it up to show them.

"He'll stick his hand in searching for it and brush the ball. It will be fabulous and he'll forget all about anything else except for the need to find somewhere to go to keep from being spotted with an erection. And when he tries to handle the problems, goat fantasies will kick in," Antonin assured them, "Now, if we could get back to the discussion at hand? I believe that this mark is actually my magic latched onto yours,  _Zaichik_ , and I believe that we'll have a better understanding of what about it is preventing you from falling pregnant if you let me see what happens to it when you orgasm."

"Is this how you proposition a witch?" Thorfinn asked his friend, raising one eyebrow.

"I'm not propositioning her. Despite the wet patch she left on my trousers, she's not sold on the idea of letting me bring her off. So I need you to do it."

Toshka glanced up to meet Thorfinn's gaze and Thorfinn could see that he was one hundred percent serious. If he weren't so used to the idiot by now, Thorfinn would likely have punched him and told him to get fucked. However, he'd had a number of years to acclimatise to Antonin Dolohov's oddities and so he could tell that not only was the man serious about his request, he very much wanted Thorfinn to do it, or he wouldn't have asked at all.

Thorfinn glanced at Granger and raised a single eyebrow, doubting she'd let him fuck her just because Dolohov want to watch her come.

"You've done it before," Antonin reminded them both, "And I know for a fact you haven't been laid since,  _Zaichik_. Might do you good to unwind a little. That project about wormholes you've been working on is making you very grouchy."

Thorfinn eyed the curly haired little witch, watching the way she narrowed her eyes on Antonin.

"You know I don't fuck for an audience, Toshka," Thorfinn reminded his friend.

"Ordinarily," Toshka rolled his eyes, "But it's not as though I haven't watched you fuck her before. And it's not as though I haven't watched her fuck her used weasel before too."

"If you've seen her do it, why do you need to see it again?" Thorfinn frowned.

"I didn't get a good look and I didn't know the magic was potentially preventing her from falling pregnant, or that it was actually my magic latched onto hers," Toshka explained as though it all made sense.

"You can't just ask us to fuck on command," Thorfinn sighed.

"You wouldn't have to fuck her. Actually, if you finger her or lick her out it will actually let me get a better view," Antonin told him, looking utterly reasonable and not at all like he was kidding.

"Is he serious?" Hermione asked of Thorfinn, frowning as though she thought it might all be some joke.

"He very rarely makes jokes, Princess," Thorfinn sighed, "And when he does, his sense of humour is so twisted that they usually aren't funny."

"I'm very funny," Toshka disagreed, "You simply don't appreciate my humour because you don't understand the things I'm joking about."

"I'm not having this argument with you again," Thorfinn sighed, not at all in the mood to be told he was too thick for Antonin's humour, "Get off the poor witch. Now."

"I don't want to," Antonin protested, frowning at the idea like he were a petulant child rather than a grown man in his mid-thirties and a powerful wizard to boot.

"And she doesn't want to fuck for your amusement or want to have you touching her, Toshka. Let her go before you land back in your cell in Azkaban," Thorfinn told the bastard, giving him a shove until he was no longer touching the little witch.

Granger sat up and attempted to regain her equilibrium. Thorfinn watched her pull on the hem of her skirt, trying to straighten it. She reached for the two sides of her shirt as though she was planning to button it up again before frowning slightly.

"You alright, Princess?" Thorfinn asked, watching her smooth a hand over her scars and then further down to rest on her flat stomach.

"Um… where's your loo?" she asked, still frowning, her shirt still open.

"Down the hall, first door on the left," Thorfinn told her, also frowning and feeling a prickle of concern for the witch that he wasn't sure he liked.

She nodded, walking off in that direction. Thorfinn watched her go, noting idly that she was barefoot. The skirt she wore hugged her arse in a most becoming way and he found himself thinking fondly of the time he'd spent licking parts of her. Despite having been assaulted by Toshka, she still walked with dignity. Her hair was falling out of the bun she'd pulled it into and her blouse hung open, but she didn't seem concerned by those things.

"Where are her shoes?" Thorfinn asked, glancing at Toshka and finding the wizard watching her leave the room with intrigue in his eyes again.

"In her office. She kicked them off before I showed up."

"You are aware that you just assaulted her, yeah?" Thorfinn asked him seriously.

In reply, Antonin pointed to the front of his trousers. Thorfinn could tell he was hard, though the wet spot she'd left on his clothing was obviously what he was meant to be seeing.

"You snatched her from her work and dragged her home with you, Toshka. I know you're obsessed with her and you're excited over the discovery, but this isn't ok. She's probably in there sobbing and fearing for her life. She's afraid of you," Thorfinn chastised.

"She is not," Antonin rolled his eyes, "She hasn't been afraid of me since she realised I had no intention of raping her whenever I break into her house."

"You can't just grab the witch and drag her wherever you want, Antonin. You can't grab her, period. She's not a doll or a toy, you bloody sod, she's a witch! A powerful one who will fuck you up if you mess with her."

"You should check on her," Antonin told him, frowning slightly, "She didn't shut the door. She's not in there because she needs the toilet."

Thorfinn shook his head, wondering how big a betrayal it would be considered if he had his best friend and flatmate admitted to St. Mungo's to have his head examined. He seemed to be coming slightly unhinged in regard to that little witch. He opened his mouth to tell the bastard that he wasn't going to barge in on the witch when she obviously wanted privacy right at that moment. Before he could speak, Antonin held up his hand.

"She's not going to appreciate it if I go in there," he said quietly, "I know I unsettle her. I'll continue to do so. And she's upset about something right now. When she gets upset, she gets dangerous."

"Dangerous in what way?" Thorfinn frowned.

"In a way that means she overthinks everything and does something stupid. I'll bet her mind has just caught up with the fact that the Weasel called her a sloppy whore and fought with her about fucking you and her infertility issues," Antonin told him quietly.

"And you think I'm equipped to handle that shit?" Thorfinn raised one eyebrow.

"No, but I can't go in there. She'll hex me."

"She'll probably hex me too," Thorfinn sighed.

"She'll probably fuck you again if you distract her by kissing her neck. It always works when she's stressed out."

"Which you know…. How?" Thorfinn wanted to know, knowing for a fact that Antonin had never laid a finger on her in that manner until today.

"Seen her react to it. Weasel used to try it, but she always swatted him away. When Potter does it, she listens."

"I wasn't aware she and Potter were fucking," Thorfinn frowned, feeling a prickle of what felt alarmingly like jealousy.

"They're not," Antonin shook his head, "But he does it when she's stressing and she stops thinking for a little while. If  _you_  do it, she'll fuck you."

"Why?" Thorfinn asked.

"She fucked you before," Antonin shrugged, "And she moaned your name the last time she finger-fucked herself."

Thorfinn smirked to hear that before it occurred to him that the assertion meant Antonin had been stalking her more obsessively. He knew for a fact that the witch had moved again and had made herself Secret Keeper of her own house to keep Toshka out of her place.

"How did you get into her house?"

"Please, I'm the best Curse Breaker alive," Antonin rolled his eyes, "A Fidelius Charm can't keep me out. I can dismantle it in about an hour. That, and she had to write the address down for Potter because he's forgetful. He left it in his desk at his office."

"You broke into the office of the Head Auror?" Thorfinn demanded.

"What? You think that's bad form?" Antonin asked curiously, "They'd really benefit from hiring me, actually. The security at the Ministry is atrocious. I mean, if that lot could break in as teenagers, it's bad. But the Head Auror should have better security on his office. I've begun sending him gifts from the evidence room that's supposed to be secure so he'll realise there's an issue."

Thorfinn wondered if the bastard was aware that he was psychotic.

"Go and check on her, please," Toshka said quietly, "And try to seduce her. I want to see those flames dance when she comes. I don't think she's infertile and while the spell I used wouldn't prevent pregnancy, my magic being latched to hers might be causing the problem."

"You think you might be the only one who can knock her up?" Thorfinn asked, another prickle of jealousy niggling him over the very idea.

Antonin shook his head slowly, "No, I think my magic prevents it from occurring unless she's fucking someone I approve of."

"What?" Thorfinn frowned.

"She's got my magic in her, and I think it's been protecting her from anything harmful that might happen to her. She survived my curse. She didn't go insane under Bella's torture and she didn't bleed out when Bella cut her with that cursed blade the bitch always liked to used when torturing muggles and mudbloods. She also didn't fall pregnant to Weasel, either. And I think my abiding hatred of both of them and my fascination with her is the reason," Antonin shrugged his shoulders and glanced up to meet his gaze for a moment, "It's something of a concern because I don't hate you or wish you ill. I rather approve of the idea of you and the little mouse, actually. And you need an heir. Could be that if my magic is preventing things I don't want from happening to her, then there's every chance that you could knock her up."

"If that were the case, wouldn't she already be pregnant?" Thorfinn asked him, "I fucked enough of my spunk into that witch to drown a small child two weeks ago. If she could get pregnant, she would be."

Antonin smirked at him wickedly for a moment.

"Who says she isn't?"


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione Granger stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her shirt hung open, revealing her navy bra, her hair was falling out of its bun, and she couldn't stop thinking about what Dolohov had said about his magic attaching itself to hers. Worse, she couldn't stop thinking about the fight she'd had with Ron about her infertility and how he'd called her a whore. She hated herself a little for letting Ron get to her after all this time. She hated that Dolohov's words about her scar and his idea that he didn't believe his curse should have made her infertile were weighing heavily on her.

She let her gaze stray from her reflection to the golden haired Viking of a wizard when he strolled up to the open bathroom door and peered inside. He didn't say anything to her before stepping across the threshold and moving up behind her, his gaze meeting hers in the mirror. Hermione felt a little flip inside her stomach at the sight of him. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about him and his love-making skill in the past two weeks. If she was being honest, she'd fantasized about the handsome idiot more than once and she didn't know what to do about it.

Her rational mind was only too willing to point out all the reasons that he was bad news and that there could never be anything but a night of fabulous sex between them, but the rest of her just wanted to feeling his rough hands running over her skin once more.

"Rough day, Princess?" he asked, giving her a crooked little smirk as he stepped up right behind her where she stood at the sink.

He lifted his hands to lean against the vanity cupboard looking at her in the mirror while he pressed his chest against her back.

"You could say that," Hermione sighed, glancing down at the sink for a moment before turning on the cold tap and reaching for a clean cloth she spotted folded neatly on a stand by the sink.

Dampening it, she patted her face with the cool cloth, not even caring that it was going to mess up her make-up.

"How rough?" Thorfinn wanted to know, his eyes still watching her as he lowered his face towards her neck.

Hermione shivered when he nosed the collar of her blouse to one side and began trailing soft kisses along the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder.

"Passed over for a research grant, realised I hate my job, got called a whore by my ex-fiancé and then assaulted by an ex-Death Eater kind of rough," Hermione admitted, letting her head fall to one side and finding her body relaxing back against his chest, unbidden, as he pressed those harmless little kisses to her neck in a way that always seemed to calm her.

"Pretty shit day then," he chuckled, "Anything I can do? I'd be happy to beat your Used Weasel bloody when he's done fantasizing about goats."

Hermione found herself laughing in spite of herself.

"Used weasel?" Hermione raised one eyebrow.

Thorfinn shrugged, jostling her slightly.

"He's a weasel," Thorfinn informed her, "A no good, used up, pathetic one."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Hermione asked him curiously.

"I don't offer to risk my parole for just anyone, Princess," he smirked at her before nibbling at her neck again.

"What about your day?" Hermione asked conversationally, closing her eyes and leaning against him a little more, "Home in the middle of the afternoon, Rowle?"

"Shit day for me too," he told her, "Got fired. Again."

"Oh dear," Hermione opened her eyes, "What did you do?"

"Might've lost my temper when someone spat on me for being an ex-Death Eater," Thorfinn admitted.

"Where were you working that people were spitting on you?" Hermione asked, frowning over the very idea.

"Until today I was doing maintenance jobs at the  _Prophet_  offices," Thorfinn told her.

"Why?" she asked, frowning at him.

"Why was I working such a shit job?" he clarified, still kissing her neck.

Hermione nodded. Thorfinn shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not exactly easy to get a job when you're on parole and a known criminal, Baby-girl," he told her quietly, "The  _Prophet_  people hired me because it looked good for them to be able to say that they were all about rehabilitating ex-criminals in keeping with the Ministry initiative to free us and integrate us all back into society."

"But you told me Dolohov works as a freelance Curse Breaker… Why are you working maintenance?" Hermione asked him, trying to understand the idea.

He gave her a half-hearted smirk in reply, "I was a professional Quidditch player before the war. Played Beater for the Ballycastle Bats. When I was arrested and hauled off to prison they replaced me. I never bothered with qualifications at anything else after I landed my contract with them right out of Hogwarts."

"But you'd have taken your NEWTs?" she frowned at him.

"Didn't exactly ace them, Princess," he shrugged, "Mostly Acceptables and an Exceeds Expectations in Arithmancy. Not exactly stellar enough for most places to look past the brand on my arm."

"So you work shit-kicker jobs and have to put up with people spitting on you?" Hermione asked, feeling righteous indignation bubble up inside of her at the very idea.

She wouldn't say she was overly fond of Death Eaters being free in general, but Hermione Granger had never been one to let discrimination go unchecked. And besides, this particular ex-Death Eater happened to be rather gifted at getting her off.

"You scare me a little when you get that look in your eyes, Kitten," he admitted softly, watching the way her curls began to frizz out of her bun as her hair crackled with magic, her annoyance over the idea of such discrimination getting the better of her.

"I scare lots of people when I look like this," she replied, "Harry's been telling me for years that I should've gone into law instead of becoming an Unspeakable because I could've intimidated the opposition into seeing things my way with this look alone."

"Why didn't you?" he asked, regarding her curiously even as he lifted on hand from the bench and skimmed it across the taut flesh of her stomach, pressing her back against him a little more firmly.

"I didn't want to fight anymore," Hermione admitted truthfully, "After the war was over and the trials were all done, the last thing I wanted to do was to go back into a courtroom. I went back to school while Harry and Ron joined the Auror program. Got my NEWTs and picked the career that would give the reporters the least leeway into nosing into my professional life in addition to my private life. Being an Unspeakable meant I was bound by oath not to reveal the inner workings of my job."

"But you hate it," he pointed out.

"Something I didn't figure out until today when it was pointed out to me that my field of study I've been focusing on for three years was utterly useless in any practical sense," Hermione sighed.

"What were you working on?" Thorfinn asked her, using his hand on her abs to roll her hips, pressing her arse back against his growing erection.

"Wormholes," Hermione told him, "Essentially, a hole in the time-space ether that would potentially allow people to travel forwards or backward in time, or even to other dimensions or 'universes'. All very theoretical and not very practical without being able to prove they exist at all, let alone that they would be useful to wizardkind."

Thorfinn's face screwed into a frown.

"Why were you working on that?" he asked.

"I was assigned a topic when I joined the Unspeakable team," Hermione shrugged, "We all were. There were a number of things the Ministry wanted investigated and that's the one I was given. I wasted three years working on it."

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked curiously, "Quit? If you hate it, you should ditch it. No use sitting around there being miserable."

"What else would I do?" she asked.

"Anything you want. You got the best NEWT scores since Dumbledore. You could walk into any job you wanted."

Hermione bit her lip.

"What would you do?" Hermione asked him seriously.

Thorfinn shrugged, "Play Quidditch."

"I don't like heights," she rolled her eyes, "I don't think they'd hire me."

He laughed at her words, the deep rich sound stirring heat in her blood and making Hermione think about the last time she'd spent this long in his presence.

"Maybe's Potter's right?" he told her, "Maybe you should go into law. You're the type to tilt at windmills. Challenge the system and make the wizarding world change their ways. They're falling back to some of their bad habits from before the war, you know?"

"I know," she nodded, "But I'm not allowed to go into law without the vote of someone on the Wizengamot. All of the seats from the Sacred Twenty-Eight – or the houses still in existence from them – are filled with people who don't much like me."

"You're a war hero. Who says no to you?"

"Quite a few of them actually. A number of them were less than pleased with my methods and my habit of questioning their judgements and poking holes in their arguments when they were conducting the Death Eater trials after the war."

"Trust me, I know about that, Princess," he muttered, his hand on her stomach sliding a little lower, his fingers skimming under the waistband of her skirt, "You were very unpopular with some people in Azkaban."

"Oh?" Hermione asked, her breath hitching when he dipped his hand lower, his free hand moving to unzip her skirt, which slid down her legs to puddle at her feet until he could slip his fingers into her knickers.

"Not with the people you'd expect. A lot of the Death Eaters were actually pretty chuffed that because of your arguments and your intervention, most of us got a fair trial. Nah, it was them who thought they'd get away with being unbranded supporters that didn't much like you," Thorfinn chuckled softly when Hermione arched into his touch as he trailed his fingers through the soft curls at the junction of her thighs.

Hermione was only too aware of the soft moan that escaped her when he pressed two of his fingers against her clit, working it in small circles. Their topic of conversation was forgotten at the heat that engulfed her and the pleasure that assaulted her senses when he touched her like that. Her thoughts scattered and Hermione twisted slightly in his hold, stretching up to capture his lips with hers. His tongue slid against hers and a heady sense of delight swept through Hermione then.

Gods, she didn't know what it was about this wizard, but he could make her forget the whole world outside of the feel of his hands and his lips and his tongue upon her body. When he slipped two fingers inside her pussy, finding her wet and ready, he groaned into her mouth and ground his cock against her arse. Hermione rather loved that sound, if she was being honest. She'd been fantasising about the things he'd done to her two weeks ago and that sound he made could make her feel so utterly sexy that Hermione adored it.

Slipping her hands over the front of his robes, Hermione cupped him through his clothes as she snogged him senseless, trying not to let her knees buckle from the feel of his fingers working inside her suddenly aching pussy. His tongue slid against her own sinfully while Hermione worked one handed to undo his trousers. The rasp of his fly only made her hotter and his breath hitched when Hermione dipped her hand into the front of his trousers and into his boxers.

Part of her mind revolted against the idea of shagging him again, pointing out that he was a Death Eater, a criminal, not someone she should be associating with. Having shagged him while extremely drunk was one thing, and the morning after – well, that had just been a continuation of the night's debauchery – but soberly, willingly shagging the big Viking of a wizard who'd done reprehensible things was quite another. She could just imagine the look on Harry's face if she told him she was shagging a Death Eater – that she'd ever shagged one, let alone that she'd gone back for more.

"Bloody hell, Princess," he groaned softly, breaking their kiss and her train of thought with a nip to her cheek and her jaw before latching onto her neck hard enough to give her a lovebite.

Hermione wrapped her small hand around his large cock and smoothed it slowly over his turgid flesh, enjoying the way it caused him to alter the way he pumped his fingers into her slick heat. Gods, she wanted to shag him again. She'd not been laid like he'd done to her in so long – ever, if she was being honest. Other than Thorfinn, the only wizard Hermione had ever slept with was Ron and while he hadn't been rubbish, he'd often been a bit over-eager and not interested enough in foreplay to get her in the mood before she'd find herself suddenly impaled.

And there was nothing worse than the chafing burn of it going in dry.

Not that she seemed to be having that problem where Rowle was concerned. Pumping her fist over his cock repeatedly, Hermione was sure she was going to fly into orgasm from his fingers alone.

"Fuck, Princess," he muttered in her ear, "Bend over for me."

Hermione didn't even pause to think about it before complying with the directive. She simply leaned forwards, pushing her arse out in his direction. He pulled his fingers from her dripping core, gripped her hips in both hands and pulled his cock from her hold. Hermione hissed between her teeth, meeting his gaze in the mirror and noting again the brilliant blue shade of his eyes when he used his thumbs to flick her knickers from her hips, sending them skidding down her thighs to the floor. He paused at her entrance, nudging her ever so slightly and making her all the hotter for the anticipation.

"Ready, Kitten?" he asked, smirking at her.

Hermione wasn't at all sure she was ready for the heady rush of shagging him again, but she found her head nodding just the same and she cried out when he pushed inside of her, sinking, gliding deeper and deeper until he was buried to the hilt in her silken passage.

"Gods," Hermione whispered, her eyelids fluttering with the wave of pleasure that assaulted her.

Thorfinn's smug grin only made it hotter, somehow, as he withdrew slowly and Hermione clenched, trying to keep him inside of her.

"You always do that," he murmured, smiling at her in the mirror while his fingers on her hips tightened as he fought for control, "Don't worry, Princess, I'm always coming right back."

Hermione mewled when he did just that, sinking himself into her once more. And then again. And again and again until Hermione's heart was racing inside her chest, pounding out an uneven rhythm and her breath came in ragged gasps and left her in low moans of delight.

"I'm gonna…" Hermine whispered, trying to focus, trying to think, trying to do anything but revel in the coiling tightness curling low in her belly and waiting to spring free.

"Squeal for me, Princess," Thorfinn rasped in her ear, his stubble scratching her cheek and her neck, tingling along her already overworked senses and making her even hotter.

Hermione shuddered as the orgasm hit, a little squeal of his name tearing from her lips, unbidden, as her whole body pulsed and spasmed. She cried out, a rasping gasp leaving her and her magical core suddenly tingling when she felt someone else's cool fingers brushing over the flames that danced on her chest.

Dolohov.

Hermione didn't even have the brain power to summon thoughts of outrage or protest to find the Russian suddenly in the bathroom along with her and Thorfinn, his fingers on her magical core making that part of her numb.

"Ah, fuck," Thorfinn suddenly cursed when her magic spasmed in addition to her muscles and he jerked hard against her, burying himself deep inside of her as he suddenly came as though unable to keep from it, some pull of her magic forcing it out of him before he was ready.

"Interesting," Antonin was muttering to himself, eying their combined reactions and ghosting his fingers over the flames.

"Fucking hell, Toshka, get out!" Thorfinn growled at him, smoothing his hands around Hermione's abdomen to cup her mound and protect her from Antonin's view.

Hermione giggled at the very idea of him invading this way and Thorfinn's notions of protecting her dignity. As though Dolohov didn't routinely invade her life and likely spy on her when she was naked anyway?

"Right. Well, this is interesting," Dolohov muttered, "Just one thing?"

"No," Thorfinn hissed at the Russian and Hermione couldn't help the laugh that left her lips over Dolohov's crestfallen expression.

Normally she wasn't one for indulging him, but he'd exacted revenge on Ron for her after he'd called her a whore, so she was feeling rather generous right then. The post-coital high was likely making her a bit mellower to his wishes too.

"What?" Hermione asked, leaning back against Thorfinn's chest and eyeing Dolohov.

"If I do this," he pressed his palm flat against the flames on her ribs, watching the way they climbed all the way up her chest and her neck to lick at her chin.

Thorfinn groaned into her hair, twitching inside of her and making Hermione's eyes cross.

"Ah, so it does pull at your magic too," Dolohov murmured softly, "That's very interesting. Right. This is going to take some experiment and deep thinking. Carry on, children."

He nodded his head, winked at Hermione and left the bathroom, leaving the door open as he went. Hermione shook her head.

"You're sure he's not insane?" she asked, tipping her head slightly and looking over her shoulder at Thorfinn.

"Not legally," Thorfinn grumbled, "I was  _not_  ready to be finished fucking you, witch."

Hermione smiled at him in the mirror.

"Do you mean to do so again in here?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

His smirk was utterly wicked as he pulled himself free of her and scooped her up, pantie-less, before carrying her off to his bedroom like some conquering barbarian.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Thorfinn was beginning to think that he was addicted to the feel of this little witch's pussy and the sweet sounds of satisfaction she made every time she came on his cock or his tongue. Watching her ride him, slow and easy, was also fast becoming one of his favourite sights. She tipped her head back, those loose riotous curls swaying and moving with her as she glided up and down the length of his cock, her expression alight with ecstasy as though she were a small child on a merry-go-round, riding the up and down motion with glee.

His hands pillowed behind his head, he bucked his hips up into each of her downward plunges, enjoying the way she bit her lip and moaned his name the closer she got to orgasm. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd fucked her. He'd talked her out of returning to work for the afternoon, insisting that if she was going to be quitting, she might as well not bother after such a shitty day there. Honestly, he'd just wanted to fuck her until he couldn't move.

He didn't know what it was about the little vixen, but the sight of her on his cock, untamed hair all in a mess, her cheeks flushed, her scar dancing madly and her eyes wild with lust and pleasure was addictive. That, and he really liked the way she clamped down on his cock every time he withdrew it from being completely sheathed within her. He couldn't really describe it. Sure, it felt good because of the physical sensation and the receptors in his skin that enjoyed the touch, but there was a psychological element to it that made him feel like he belonged right there, bollocks-deep inside of her and she didn't want to let him go.

After several long years sitting in a prison cell with only his own hand for release, he thoroughly enjoyed every witch he bedded, but he'd be lying if he said this one wasn't special. The idea baffled him even as he drove his cock up into her downward slide, smirking to himself when she moaned throatily. There was nothing that special about her.

He'd bedded prettier witches. He'd bedded witches with bigger tits and rounder arses and more defined curves. There were purer, nicer, happier witches out there, any one of whom might be charmed into falling for him long enough for him to fuck the Ministry-mandated heir he needed into her. But as he watched Granger's back suddenly arch, his name on her tongue as she orgasm on his cock once more, Thorfinn found himself thinking that he wanted this one.

Maybe she could get pregnant, maybe she couldn't. If he was being honest, he wasn't ready for the kid the Ministry kept insistently reminding him he needed to be siring, so for the time being he was hoping she couldn't, or rather, that she wouldn't. She went boneless and limp in her exhaustion as her orgasm began to ebb and Thorfinn smirked when she sprawled across his chest, those wild curls tickling his neck and his chin. If she cared that they were both sweaty from their exertions, she didn't let on.

Flipping her until she was pressed into his mattress, Thorfinn propped himself up on his elbows, fucking her hard as he chased his own release. Using his fingers, he tilted her chin until her could claim her hot little mouth with his own, sliding his tongue against hers and savouring her taste. She whimpered in her throat at the brutal shagging and Thorfinn didn't doubt that she was probably getting sore from their vigorous session. Hell, his own body was aching all over again.

And that, he was thinking, was why he was getting addicted to the little muggleborn witch. She let him fuck her repeatedly every time he got her naked. No matter her half-hearted protests of soreness or incapability to survive another round, she let him do it and she came so fucking prettily every time that he was hooked. That, and he actually wanted to do her again and again.

Other witches he'd fucked were one-trick wonders or the type he was done with by dawn before they could go getting clingy or attached or otherwise thinking that he might be keeping them around. This one didn't ask, didn't offer, didn't hint at anything other than to complain of hunger, thirst or the cramp in her arse when he fucked her at an uncomfortable angle. Hell, she barely even spoke to him other than to direct him to fuck her harder, or there, or just like that. And Thorfinn kind of liked that.

When he'd fucked his come into her one more time, Thorfinn dropped down on top of her, pinning her to the bed and likely crushing her petite frame but too spent to move. She trailed her hands through his long hair and Thorfinn felt her press a kiss to the side of his neck.

"You alright?" he managed to grunt at her a few minutes later.

"I'm peachy," she told him, sounding sleepy.

"You hungry?" Thorfinn asked next, propping himself up on one elbow and kind of liking the way she kept tracing her hands over his shoulders and down his back before sliding them back into his hair, over and over again.

"A bit," she nodded, "I'll probably make something at home, or grab a bit with Harry later."

"You're still thinking about leaving?" he asked, raising one eyebrow at her when he pulled back far enough to look at her.

"I have a cat to feed," she shrugged her shoulders.

Thorfinn almost laughed and her blasé response, obviously not caring that she wouldn't be staying the night or being treated like anything other than a really good fucking shag.

"Oi, Thorfinn?" Antonin asked, opening the bedroom door at that moment and poking his head in.

Thorfinn flung a pillow at the bastard.

"Watch it," he complained, "Are you coming out for drinks tonight? It's Friday."

"Shit," Thorfinn grumbled, glancing at Granger.

"Don't let me stop you," she help up her hands, pulling them from his hair and not even looking phased this time to have Antonin in the doorway while she was naked, "I'm supposed to feed Crooks and meet Harry for drinks tonight myself. Get off, could you? You're getting heavy."

Thorfinn snorted at the witch before rolling off. He wasn't in the mood for going out drinking, if he was being honest, but since they'd all been released, most of his ex-Death Eater associates met up every Friday night for drinks and a chat about the woes of living as 'free' citizens of Wizarding Britain.

"Dolohov?" Granger asked of the Russian wizard still awaiting Thorfinn's answer about going out, "Could you be a gentleman and bring my skirt and knickers from the bathroom?"

Thorfinn watched the witch sit up in his bed before getting to her feet, stark naked, to begin searching for her bra.

He also caught Toshka's smirk before he disappeared to bring her what she'd asked for.

"You realise he's going to impose on you even more if you're going to get comfortable with him, don't you?" Thorfinn asked the witch, his eyes on her arse – which bore a bright red depiction of his handprint on her left arse cheek – as she bent over and dug her bra out from under the blankets they'd kicked off the bed.

"He already imposes on me," she rolled her eyes, "I figure that if I humanise him rather than continuing to let him enjoy his stalker-fetish, he'll extend me some common courtesies like not walking in on me in the loo."

"Good luck with that," Thorfinn laughed, catching his shirt when she tossed it to him.

"You should probably shower if you're going out," she commented, ferreting around to find her blouse.

"Nah," he smirked, "I'll make all the lads jealous reeking of sex  _before_  the drinking begins. Bass will lose his mind."

"Well, if you let any of them lick essence of me off of you, take pictures and share, yeah?" she replied and Thorfinn paused, about to pull his shirt over his head to stare at the witch while she smirked at him.

"You're kinkier than I realised, Princess," Thorfinn smirked at her, "You know I'm not going to be able to get the images of you finger-fucking yourself to the idea of the lads licking me out of my head now, yeah?"

"That'll make for a fun night of drinking with them all, I'm sure," she replied wickedly, "Dolohov? Do you have my stuff? I swear, if I find the creepy bastard sniffing my knickers, I'm going to maim him."

She wandered out of his room wearing only her bra and her shirt, her tight arse twitching and swaying from side to side as she walked. Thorfinn smirked when he noticed the glisten of wetness between her thighs as his come trickled free of her.

"Oh, for the love of… Really, Dolohov?" Thorfinn heard her exasperated voice a few moments later.

Frowning, Thorfinn followed her out of the bedroom, still buttoning his jeans, only to find Toshka digging a spoon into a pint of ice-cream, her clothing sitting on the bench next to where he was leaning.

"What?" Toshka asked her, raising one eyebrow, "You don't want to put these back on with all that spunk leaking out of you,  _Zaichik_."

He waved his spoon towards her sticky thighs.

Granger's cheeks turned crimson when she glanced down at herself before she stalked away and into their bathroom, muttering curses to herself. Thorfinn shook his head, watching her go.

"Why do you look like you want to hex me?" Toshka asked when Thorfinn moved over to grab Granger's things, intent on bringing them to her, not at all certain he wanted Toshka getting another eyeful of the witch's tight body.

"Fuck you," Thorfinn retorted.

"Oooh, not very friendly this afternoon," Toshka chuckled, "You'd think getting repeatedly laid for hours on end would've put you in a better mood."

Thorfinn flipped him the forks.

"Did you do the charm to test if she's pregnant?" Toshka called after him as he stomped towards the bathroom where he could hear the taps running.

He found the witch perched on the sink rinsing her skin with the cloth she'd used earlier on her face. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows at him in question when he stomped into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Why do you look like you're about to yell at me?" she frowned at him.

"You're walking around naked in front of him now?" he asked, jealousy prickling him.

"He's seen it before, I guarantee," Hermione informed him, tipping her head to one side, "The only difference this time is that I'm aware he's there and that he's looking, rather than having him peeping in my shower."

"Do you want to fuck him?" Thorfinn asked before he could think better of it.

"He's insane," she wrinkled her nose at him, "I mean, I know I've likely given you the impression that I'm a trollop or something, but I don't normally shag just anyone."

"Just me then?" he asked, raising one eyebrow at her.

"Not that it's your business who I shag, but yes," she admitted, blushing and looking down at her lap for a moment.

Thorfinn found himself moving closer to her, his hand coming up of its own accord to spear through her soft folds, two fingers tunnelling into her passage.

"Ungh," she groaned when Thorfinn curled his fingers against the front wall of her slick sheath, "I can't do it again, Rowle."

"Not trying to make you," he informed her gruffly, "Tilt forwards a bit."

His free hand gripped her hip, angling her body. The trickling sound of his spunk leaking out of her and hitting the sink she sat over seemed to startle her.

"Bloody hell," she grumbled, her cheeks blooming crimson once more.

"What do you expect when I fuck you… how many times in a row was it?" he asked smugly.

"I lost count," she admitted, her cheeks an adorable shade of pink that made Thorfinn smirk.

"You sure you can't get pregnant, Princess?" he asked her, "Toshka thinks you can. And if I keep shagging this much spunk into you, you're bound to end up that way."

"Who says you're going to keep doing it?" she asked, raising one eyebrow challengingly.

Thorfinn leaned in and snogged her hotly, making her groan when he twisted his fingers to remove more of his essence from within her. Her tongue danced with his for several long minutes and Thorfinn was thinking she was trouble with a capital 'T' when his traitorous cock twitched inside his jeans at the idea of another round.

"I can't," she gasped as though sensing his thoughts, pulling back from him and shaking her head as she panted, "Not again. It stings."

Thorfinn smirked at her.

"Still think you don't want to keep doing it?" he asked her.

"I…" she bit her lip, her whiskey-coloured eyes searching his face carefully, "We can't."

Thorfinn raised his eyebrows.

"You got someone other than your Used Weasel to answer to about it?" he wanted to know.

"No, it's not that," she shook her head, "It's… I mean, you're you and I'm me."

"Well spotted, Princess," Thorfinn scoffed.

"You know what I mean," she swatted his chest in punishment for his snark, "I'm… do you know the types of things the papers would write about us if they found out we'd shagged?"

Thorfinn felt a familiar, unpleasant twist in his gut at her words. He knew what that meant even if she didn't have the guts to come right out and say it. Since his release he'd heard that speech a few too many times. The one where his Death Eater past and his criminal record was something witches wanted to try on a night or two before they went back to their safe little lives and put him in their spank bank, so to speak. The 'I couldn't be seen with a Death Eater' speech. He hated it worse than the spitting, if he was honest.

"I… don't give me that look, Rowle," Granger scolded though Thorfinn hadn't realised his expression had changed, "I'm not being a bloody elitist or trying to propagate the type of bullshit that means you got spat on today. It's not about you being a Death Eater. It's about the fact that I, unfortunately, end up on the front page of the paper entirely too often and the last thing you need when you're trying to find a witch to procreate with is to be associated with me."

"You realise that you might already be pregnant with my kid after what happened at Halloween, yeah?" Thorfinn asked her, raising his eyebrows at her.

She had the audacity to roll her eyes at him.

Reaching for her wand where it lay upon the bench, she picked it up and muttered the charm to test for pregnancy. The charm sank into her skin before rising once more, bright red bubbles emitting from her for a minute. Red. Negative. She wasn't pregnant. Thorfinn never thought he'd feel disappointed at the sight of those red bubbles.

"Dolohov's theory about the idea of his curse affecting me is sound for one reason, Rowle," she told him quietly, "It prevents me from getting pregnant. I have a one in a billion chance of falling pregnant at all, according to my test results. And carrying the pregnancy to term is even slimmer. Which brings me back to my point. You need to find someone to carry on your bloodline within the next few years or you're going to be thrown back in prison for violating the conditions of your parole. The last thing you need is something with me, casual or otherwise, complicating your chances of finding a decent witch to look past your history and let you impregnate them."

With that said, she fished his hand from between her legs and shifted to run the taps once more. She even guided his hand under the spray to cleanse his fingers of their combined juices. Part of him, the part that he was thinking must be powered by his cock, wanted to argue with her that even if she couldn't get pregnant – and he had more faith in the Toshka's theories about his magic protecting her than hindering her than he did in whatever tests she had done at St. Mungo's – they could still fuck. Hell, part of him wanted to fuck her again right that second.

His pride, however, wouldn't allow him to continue pressing the point if she was going to be difficult about it. He might not much like the point she'd made, but she was right. A condition of his parole was that he and the other bastards who'd been released to propagate the species were all to have a kid on the way, at the very least, within five years of their release. Three years on the outside and Thorfinn still hadn't found anyone he remotely wanted to consider at the bearer of his offspring. Not until the little witch sitting her bare arse over the sink of his dingy bathroom and trying to rinse his spunk from her nethers, anyway.

"You going out tonight?" he asked rather than commenting on her idea of being a hindrance to his chances at knocking someone up.

"Yes," she sighed, rolling her eyes, "I promised Harry that we'd have dinner before meeting up with everyone else for drinks at the Leaky Cauldron this evening. And I skipped last week's catch up because I really did not want Ronald screaming at me about walking in on us at Halloween where every reporter and his dragon could hear him."

"That worried about a scandal over being caught with me, eh?" Thorfinn asked bitterly, looking away from her to reach for his cologne so he could spray himself with it.

"Not at all," she shook her head, "They wouldn't even know who to write about unless I told them your name. No, I just didn't want  _another_  headline detailing my tragic and complicated relationship with my ex-fiancé splashed across the papers. I get hate mail over it because I'm always painted as the unreasonable one even when it's him flying off the handle and him cheating on me."

"My offer to maim him still stands, Princess," Thorfinn smirked at her, kind of liking the way she brushed off his bitterness as though it were utter folly.

"With luck he'll be too busy fantasising wildly inappropriate things about goats to even turn up tonight," she smirked in return, "But I may take you up on that offer someday. You're going out tonight too?"

Thorfinn nodded, "Not to the Leaky Cauldron though. Too mainstream. Too busy with bastards who think it's fun to spit on us ex-Death Eaters or to pick fights with us. That, and half the time we get refused service, depending on who's running the bar."

Her brow furrowed at the very idea and Thorfinn got the feeling that if he kept spending time with her and casually mentioning facts about the way ex-criminals were treated, she'd get up in arms enough to tilt at a few windmills again.

"They refuse to serve you?" she asked, "Who do you go with? Other than Dolohov?"

"The old crew," Thorfinn shrugged, "Rod and Bass Lestrange; Nott's kid, the Malfoy kid, Lucius too, sometimes. Selwyn, Mulciber, Carrow, Rockwood."

"All the bad guys," she smirked at him.

"Pretty much. That's how society sees it, anyway. Tom doesn't usually mind serving us if we're at the Leaky, and the little blonde thing he's grooming to take over the place – she's sweet as pie. But the other bastards don't much like us. That and it upsets the other patrons so they usually have to ask us to move along before a duel can break out," Thorfinn admitted, "The pubs in Knockturn Alley are better suited to us, and they don't care who we are or what we did."

"There are pubs in Knockturn Alley?" she asked, looking surprised.

"It's London, Princess," Thorfinn chuckled as she used his bath-towel to dry off before pulling her knickers up her legs, "If there's not a pub every three shops, the world will end. You didn't think the Leaky Cauldron was the only wizarding pub in London, did you?"

"Well, no," she admitted, "There's that other one that all the reporters and the famous people like to frequent. We never go there because Harry hates the attention. What's it called?"

"The Smoking Quill," Thorfinn supplied.

"Yeah, that's it. Have you been in there? It's terrible. And expensive. The drinks cost an arm and a leg," she rolled her eyes, "Where do you go in Knockturn Alley? Are they… decent places or are the type of place I'd get hexed?"

Thorfinn laughed out loud at her expression.

"Well, I don't imagine you'd fit into many of them, Princess. The Hag's Snatch is the worst of on the alley. Don't go in there without an escort, whatever you do," he told her.

"The Hag's Snatch? What a disgusting name for a pub!" she made a face.

"Yeah, it's not a nice place," Thorfinn chuckled, "But some of the others are alright… or would be alright for you, I should say. Us ex-Death Eater types frequent whichever one has the best Happy Hour specials each week. You'd probably handle yourself alright in The Itchy Frog, or The Lazy Spider's got good cocktails, if you drink those. Stay away from The Hunting Ground unless you like to walk on the wild side – it's one of those places frequented by vampires, werewolves and the like. I'd pay to see you in The Devil's Bed, Princess."

"Haven't I been there all afternoon?" she smirked raising an eyebrow at him and making Thorfinn laugh.

"Cute," he rolled his eyes, "But watch your mouth, or you'll end up back there."

"Threats now?" she laughed, "Anyone might think you've taken a shine to me, Rowle?"

Thorfinn grinned.

"You're the one objecting to an arrangement for casual sex, Baby-girl, not me."

She rolled her eyes at him, "You're only saying that because you like the way I moan your name, Thorfinn."

"Say it again?" he grinned.

"Don't you give me that look, Rowle, I'm already going to be late for my dinner date with Harry," she scolded, swatting at him, "Shut up and snog me so I can leave. I can't turn up reeking of you."

Thorfinn laughed at her words, catching her hips and pulling her flush against his chest. He captured her lips hungrily, already thinking about fucking her all over again and thinking he could forgo an evening spent grumbling to the lads over losing his job and putting up with Rockwood's shitty humour and Malfoy's condescension. Hell, if he could fuck her all over again until he died from exhaustion, Thorfinn was thinking he wouldn't even mind. He'd never enjoyed shagging a witch as much as he enjoyed this one.

She was breathing heavily when she pulled away, her eyes glazed and unfocused.

"I should go," she whispered.

"You don't have to," he told her.

She blinked at him before a warm smile slid across her face.

"Yes, I do. Harry will mount a full-scale man-hunt for me if I skip another Friday night. And you have people waiting on you too. Go on, off you go and get drunk with them so you can do something stupid, like knock some witch up," she gave him a little shove towards the door, still smiling at him, before she winked and disapparated with a sharp crack.

Thorfinn stared at the spot she'd left from for nigh on five minutes, thinking that he really didn't want to take her advice in the slightest. If he couldn't fuck her for the evening, he was thinking he could sleep for a week.

"Are you still pouting?" Toshka called through the door, obviously having heard Granger leaved.

Thorfinn snatched open the door to glare at the bastard he called a best friend.

"If Malfoy gives me any shit tonight, I'm punching him," Thorfinn declared.

"How are you this cranky after being laid?" Toshka shook his head, looking baffled, "The last time you shagged that little witch you were cheery for days."

"She's not pregnant," Thorfinn informed him.

Antonin's brow furrowed.

"Oh," he said, "Well, not everyone has the misfortune of knocking someone up on the first try, mate. There's always next time."

"She told me we can't have any kind of arrangement, casual or otherwise, because it would interfere with my ability to locate a witch to have a kid with so I don't violate my parole."

"Please," Antonin rolled his eyes, "You've still got ages for that."

"I kind of wanted her to be pregnant," Thorfinn admitted to his best friend.

Antonin smirked at him wickedly.

"You fancy her a bit, eh?" Antonin asked.

"She's the best fuck I've ever had," Thorfinn defended, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well," Antonin grinned, "Then what are you doing taking 'no' for an answer?"


	6. Chapter 6

"Can I ask you something?" Harry asked, eyeing her curiously as they ate dinner together later that same afternoon.

"Of course you can, Harry," Hermione laughed, sipping her red wine and enjoying her amatriciana immensely, "You know that. I have no secret from you."

"None? Really?" Harry raised one eyebrow, "Because that lovebite on your neck makes me think you've got a secret lover that you've not told me about."

Hermione blanched, clapping her hands to her throat.

"Shit!" she cursed, "I completely forgot about the bastard giving me a love-bite. Is it really obvious?"

"Only in that dress," he nodded at the way her dress was completely sheer around her neckline and over her shoulder, utterly see-through to the cups holding her boobs in, "Something you'd like to share?"

Hermione subtly used her wand to conceal the lovebite before she answered. She took a sip of her wine and looked around the busy Italian restaurant they'd come to, making sure no one would be listening.

"I've been having sex," Hermione admitted to Harry.

"I figured that much out for myself," Harry smirked at her, "Who with?"

"I… You're going to be upset with me about it," Hermione warned him, sighing.

"That bad? It's not Malfoy, is it?" Harry raised one eyebrow.

Hermione recoiled at the very idea.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Harry laughed at her reaction, "Well, if it's not him, I guarantee I won't be too put out with you. Besides, I told you about it when I was nailing Parkinson after Ginny and I broke up. How much worse could it be?"

Hermione nibbled her bottom lip worriedly.

"Well, it all started on Halloween," Hermione began, wanting to give Harry the context so he'd better understand, "Oh, who am I kidding? It started in our first year at Hogwarts. He was a seventh year, at the time, and I walked in on him getting a blowjob in the library. Naturally, I reported it. He hounded me all year after that. Anyway, I didn't see him again until the war… He um… he was a Death Eater."

Harry's brow furrow a bit.

"One of the ones we paroled to further their bloodline?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione sigh, "Don't be upset with me. I… I ran into him at Halloween when I was plastered. He was in my hotel room at the Leaky Cauldron, apparently having been deposited there after getting rip-roaring drunk and passing out."

"Wait… Hermione, tell me it's not Dolohov?" Harry asked, "You don't want to encourage him. You know the types of things he did to Ron while you two were together."

"It's not Dolohov," Hermione assured him, "Dolohov's a bit too old for me, I think. And he's completely barmy as well. Honestly, the things he does… He barged into my office today, did I tell you? Ron was there and he insulted me and Dolohov gave him another cursed object before shoving him out of my office."

"Tell me who your shagging before you tell me what charges I'm pressing against Dolohov, please," Harry sighed, pulling his glasses off his nose and rubbing his eyes as though he had to reach for patience.

"Right. Yes, that's where I was… Well, I got back to my room to find a freshly showered wizard just walking out of my bathroom. I was in my cat-suit costume, and pissed as well. He… he didn't recognise me at first, but when he did he was pretty interested in intimidating me like he used to do to me in first year."

"Who?" Harry demanded.

"Um… Thorfinn Rowle," Hermione admitted.

"That huge blonde Death Eater with the long hair?" Harry frowned, "I didn't think he'd be your type."

"Neither did I, to be honest. I mean, Viktor was burly, to an extent, but still rather skinny and fine-boned to be a Seeker. And Ron, well, you know what he's like. Tall, broad shoulders but lanky rather than a hulking Viking of a wizard."

"And the hair?" Harry asked, looking amused.

"The hair is actually my favourite part," Hermione grinned, "Well…. Second favourite."

Harry choked on his wine when she winked at him, his eyes going wide at her playfulness.

"Bloody hell, Hermione!" Harry choked out, coughing and spluttering.

"Sorry. Are you alright?" Hermione laughed, offering him his napkin.

"So you and that bloody bastard had a history even before the Battle at the Astronomy Tower or before they came after us when we fled Bill's wedding?" Harry confirmed.

"Yes. One overlapping year at school," Hermione nodded, "Anyway, he was hitting on me and I was drunk and he was naked and then I was naked… He's a really good shag. Not that I had much to compare him to, you know, but he's particularly virile for a man in his thirties."

"You've been shagging him the past two weeks?" Harry confirmed.

"Oh, no," Hermione shook her head. "No, I mean I shagged him multiple times on Halloween. And Ginny and Ron walked in on the two of us the morning after, before he apparated us away when Ron went ballistic and we realised Dolohov had snuck into the room between the last go and him waking me up with his tongue between my legs. And I shagged him twice more at his place the same morning before I left. It's actually why I missed drinks last week. I didn't want Ron and Ginny interrogating me about it all in front of the reporters at the Leaky Cauldron."

"Blimey, Hermione," Harry shook his head.

"But I didn't see Rowle again after that, not until today. Like I said, Ron barged into my office and he called me a sloppy whore when I refused to tell him who Rowle is and why Dolohov was watching him go down on me. Anyway, Dolohov turned up in my office too and decided that was the moment he simply  _had_  to investigate my scar. He cursed Ron and partially stripped me. Then he apparated me to his flat – where he lives with Thorfinn."

"And you shagged Rowle? Just like that?" Harry asked, frowning.

"Well, it's a bit more complicated. You know I've told you that Dolohov's curse made me all but infertile? Well, Dolohov wanted to investigate the scars and apparently had to see what would happen if he touched it while I was orgasming," Hermione explained, "Yes, that's the face I made too, even though I  _know_  he's seen me naked before. Since I refused to let him bring me off, Rowle seduced me into letting him do it and Dolohov snuck in. The scar is actually a part of Dolohov's magic – the part he put into the curse that didn't do what it should – latched onto mine. That's why it dances when I'm distracted. It's not my magic, but his. It has a very interesting effect when he touches it."

"Do you want me to throw him back in prison for molesting you and violating your privacy?" Harry asked seriously.

"No," Hermione shook her head, "He's crazy, but he has no intention of hurting me, Harry. He has a theory that the magic – his magic – inside my scar is what's been preventing me from falling pregnant. Not because it's damaged my body, but because he thinks his magic is protecting me from anything he would deem harmful. Rowle mentioned Dolohov's grown very protective of me since cursing me. I imagine it's a side effect of his magic being attached to mine. A sense of self-preservation carried over to me as a result of the magical link."

"Does that mean…  _he_  could get you pregnant?" Harry asked, frowning.

"Dolohov?" Hermione asked, startled, "Or Rowle?"

"Dolohov."

"Oh… I don't know. I didn't ask him. He's investigating it. I was too busy having sex…" Hermione laughed, "Rowle thinks that Dolohov's magic protects me from anything 'harmful' that he wouldn't approve of seeing happen to me. Like, he loathes Ron and knew Ron was cheating on me, so he thinks his magic 'protected' me from being tied to Ron through children. Rowle thinks that  _he_  could knock me up. I, on the other hand, have read my medical test results and doubt their theories."

"Are you being careful, just in case?" Harry asked, "If you  _can_  get pregnant, do you really want to do so with Rowle?"

"I'm not pregnant after Halloween," Hermione shrugged, "But honestly, I'm at the point where I don't think I'd object to having anyone's child, if it meant I could have one. I know I didn't want them for a few more years yet, but… well, if there is a chance I can have one, I feel like I should take it, no matter when it happens or who it happens with."

"Nothing like being told you can't have something to make you want it, eh?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Essentially," Hermione sighed, "Having children was always a far-off goal for me until I had those tests done and they told me I might not ever conceive."

Harry nodded in understanding.

"I used to think the same thing until Andie got sick," Harry sighed, "I was content to be the cool godfather who played with Teddy and watched out for him when I could – like Sirius did for me. But now…"

He trailed off, shaking his head. Andromeda had contracted Dragon Pox sixth months ago and while she was still very much young enough to fight the virus – and had been making leaps and bounds in regard to her recovery – but she had to be kept in confinement at St Mungo's to avoid an epidemic. She also wasn't' allowed to see Teddy, which meant that he'd been living with Harry – who'd taken time off work to raise the small boy when Molly couldn't take him through the day. He'd been doing a fabulous job with Teddy too, and Hermione recognised all the signs of his increasing yearning to be a father, in addition to being godfather. At this point, Harry practically counted Teddy as belonging to him anyway, but Hermione understood the yearning to be a mother herself of a tiny human that was half her.

"Now you want one of your own," Hermione nodded her head in understanding, "I know. Every time I see that boy, it gets harder to give him back."

"I don't think I  _can_  give Teddy back anymore, Hermione," Harry admitted softly," Andie is going to pull through. I know she will… But I feel like, when she does, I'm going to have to get a bigger place so she can move in with me because I can't give him up."

Hermione smiled at her best friend.

"I'm sure she won't mind, Harry," Hermione soothed him, reaching across the table to smooth the deep frown line that had been beginning to etch between his eyebrows, "She'll be weakened magically and physically for a long time as a result of the Dragon Pox. Having someone around who can keep up with Teddy without panting and gasping for breath will be good. And I think she gets lonely a lot, since she lost Ted and Dora."

"I think so too," Harry nodded, "I just… He's one more thing to consider, you know? In regard to… well, I don't want him to be in his teens and heading off to Hogwarts before I have a few of my own."

"Which you don't want to do until you're married," Hermione grinned at him, "Which might be an issue to resolve, since you're currently single."

"Well… yeah," Harry sighed, frowning again, "I just… I want someone who doesn't care about my ridiculous fame and who doesn't just want my money, you know? And that sounds pretentious to say. I just…"

"You want Ginny," Hermione concluded.

"I thought that," Harry shook his head with a sigh, "But I really don't think I do. I've been thinking about it a lot recently and there was a reason we broke up in the first place. She's great for a laugh, and her love of Quidditch is admirable; just want… more."

"More?" Hermione arched one eyebrow at him.

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"More, you know? Someone I can grumble at and whine to without fearing she'll think it's her fault or that she's done something to displease me. Someone who won't be insanely jealous whenever the papers publish trash about me and some other witch I've never met," Harry explained, "Someone I can talk to for hours on end if I want, but someone who won't mind sitting in companionable silence with me."

Hermione smiled at him, knowing that feeling all too well.

"It's a pity that you and I have no romantic chemistry," Harry went on, eyeing her speculatively, "Or you better bet your arse I'd be after you, Hermione."

Hermione burst out laughing at his words, "Because that worked out so well the first time?"

Harry laughed along with her.

"I maintain that the alcohol made it weird," Harry informed her, sipping his wine and grinning cheekily.

"It wasn't the whiskey," Hermione shook her head, "The whiskey landed us in bed together in the first place."

"Thus, making it awkward when I woke up naked next to you," Harry smirked at her, "If we'd been sober to make that decision, it'd have been fine."

"Except that when we were sober we both giggled like school-girls before you even put your hand up my shirt," Hermione rolled her eyes, rather fondly recalling the night she'd spent with Harry.

No one else knew about it, of course. They'd both been recently single when it had happened, and Hermione knew she hadn't actually shagged Harry – there's been no after-sex soreness and no sticky mess to deal with when she'd woken to find him nakedly spooning her. She was ninety-five percent sure that fellatio had taken place on both parts, but had no real memory of ending up in bed with him to begin with.

"Well it's just… you're so…"

"If you say frigid, I'll smack you," Hermione warned him.

"Oh, no," Harry smirked, "Seeing the size of the lovebite on you neck, and that mark at the curve of your shoulder there that looks suspiciously like a bite-mark, I think anyone using the word frigid in relation to you just didn't know what he was bloody doing."

Hermione smirked at the way Harry casually insulted Ron for his lack of finesse in the bedroom and lack of tact everywhere else.

"Having since expanded my realm of carnal knowledge, I can guarantee he had no idea what he was doing. And that it was really awkward between us, actually," Hermione frowned a little, "He… things with Ron always felt kind of forced. Not as though he made me do anything I wasn't comfortable with, but more like we had to work at it to feel attracted enough to one another to shag at all."

"I felt like that with Ginny after the thrill of sex for the sake of sex wore off," Harr nodded in understanding, "But it does bring us back to my original point. You're not interested in trying for kids with me instead of some bloody Death Eater?"

Hermione glanced up at him, realising as he brought it up again that Harry was actually serious.

"I… are you attracted to me, Harry?" Hermione asked, tipping her head to one side to regard him curiously.

"I think you're beautiful," Harry replied.

"But you don't want to slam me up against that wall and ravish me, do you?" Hermione nodded to the nearby wall.

"I… not really," Harry admitted, "But I'm not really a 'slam women into things' kind of bloke, Hermione. I'm more of a 'surprise them in the shower' kind of guy."

He winked at her. Actually winked. Hermione stared at him for a long minute it silence, her lips twitching before they both burst out laughing.

"Ok, so the idea of surprising you in the shower makes me fear for my loins," Harry admitted, "But I could get into it if we stopped giggling like children every time we were naked or being inappropriate."

"You don't even want anything romantic with me," Hermione rolled her eyes, "You just adore me because I'm the best friend you could ever have."

"Well, how is anyone else supposed to top that?" Harry countered, "What other witch is ever going to understand that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have to check the wards and the entire house to make sure we're safe before coming back to bed and spooning."

"Just admit that you miss spooning me every night, Harry," Hermione laughed at his words.

"I do, actually," Harry admitted, smiling softly, "I got so used to it on the run with you, waking up with a face full of those wild curls, that I used to wake up with Ginny sometimes and I'd panic for a minute thinking I'd somehow been tired enough after watch the crawl in with Ron instead."

Hermione snorted her wine at his words, dissolving into raucous laughter that Harry joined in with.

"That would've been disconcerting," Hermione laughed.

"It was. She used to get funny when I'd wake her up by jerking back really fast and trying to shove her across the bed. Should've seen her face when she insisted on satin sheets and wore a silk nightgown to bed. She skidded right off the edge and onto the floor," Harry admitted, his cheeks turning red at the admission.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione giggled, pressing her napkin to her lips to keep from spitting her wine everywhere in her amusement.

"Needless to say, the next witch I date better have hair like yours or I might injure her by accident," Harry replied dryly.

"So you like my hair, and you like how comfortable we are with one another because we've been closer than siblings since we were eleven," Hermione pointed out, "But you still don't want to crawl into bed with me."

Harry tipped his head sideway, his green eyes turning assessing as he raked them over her from head to foot. Hermione blinked in surprise at the way he did so, never having been checked out by Harry before and finding it a little disconcerting.

"I do want to, actually," he admitted, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, "I know we'd laugh ourselves stupid and likely never manage to get all of our clothes off without blushing like idiots. But I'd give it a go."

"Don't you want to better than giving it a go?" Hermione asked, "Don't you want explosive, must shag again half an hour after the first round because you're insatiable at the sight of her types of sex?"

"Well, yeah," Harry admitted, "But I had that with Ginny. It was everything else that didn't work. If I could meld your personality to Ginny's libido, we'd be set."

"With my hair, of course," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Well, obviously," Harry admitted, reaching over to tug one of her curls affectionately, "I like feeling like the one in the relationship with the least crazy hair."

"I'll smack you, Harry Potter," Hermione warned, grinning at him.

"You wouldn't dare," he retorted, sticking his tongue out at her.

"Oh, I would," Hermione told him swatting his arm to prove it.

"Such lawlessness, Hermione," Harry shook his head, pretending to be disappointed with her, "Two rolls in the sack with a Death Eater and here you are, assaulting the Head Auror of the MLE.

"I'll assault you again if you don't share your food," Hermione informed him, giggling.

"Menace," Harry accused, offering her his forkful of linguini.

"You love me," Hermione told him, eating the food and smiling at him, "I'll tell you what?"

"Hmmm?" Harry asked, feeding himself some of his pasta before looking up at her.

"If neither of us are dating, married, pregnant or parents by the time you're thirty, we'll get hitched and you can sow wild oats in some wretched witch you hate who will birth the kid and we'll raise it," Hermione grinned at him.

"You don't think I could knock you up?" Harry asked, looking affronted.

"I think we'd die of laughter trying," Hermione shrugged.

"Probably," Harry sighed, "I do love you, you know."

"You're just not in love with me?" she asked.

"No, it's not that. I'm in love with you. I have been since I was eleven and you told me I was a great wizard just for being brave and loyal, rather than for being some Chosen One or Boy Who Lived or anything else," Harry shrugged at her, "You brilliant and funny and beautiful and I swear that if we had a romantic spark, I'd have married you before you ever even thought about dating Ron. I'm in love with you, and I know you're in love with me too. We're just not as super-charged as we should be. It's like your soulmate, just not in a wild-sex, rock-your-world-off-its-axis kind of way."

Hermione felt tears prickle her eyes at his words.

"You realise now that I'm going to spend the rest of the night hugging you, yeah?" Hermione asked him.

"I liked hugging you," Harry shrugged his shoulders, "You smell good and you fit just right in my arms."

"Too bad we don't want to go at it like bunnies, eh?" Hermione giggled.

"It's a real shame," Harry nodded, pretending to be devastated, "What do you think the chances are of me finding a witch who will shag me stupid and won't mind that I love you more than I love her?"

Hermione shook her head at him.

"I'm sure there's a witch out there like that. You just have to find her. Which you won't do if you spend all night drinking wine and eating pasta while lamenting our lack of sexual tension," Hermione told him, "So eat up and we'll head to the pub."

"I hardly think I'm going to find a decent witch at the pub, Hermione."

"You never know. I found a pretty decent wizard at the pub."

"Please, Hermione decent?" Harry rolled his eyes, "Rowle's criminal record is longer than your arm. If he's decent, then Ron's a bloody saint."

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

"What the fuck do you mean the entire Alley's closed?" Rabastan Lestrange demanded of the Ministry Officials raiding the entire Alley, including every pub they would normally be drunk in by now.

Thorfinn Rowle sighed, tipping his head back and thinking he shouldn't just stayed in bed and daydreamed about fucking Granger all over again.

"I mean that by order of the Ministry, every Knockturn Alley business-house is currently being search by the MLE, the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts boys and the DRCMC chaps," Arthur Weasley informed an angry Bass.

"On what grounds, Weasley?" Lucius Malfoy drawled hostilely.

"On the grounds of harbouring fugitives, abusing artefacts and unlicensed creature hybridisation, Malfoy," Weasley retorted, handing over a copy of the official notices that had obviously been given, along with search warrants, to every business owner in the Alley.

"Whatever for?" Rodolphus wanted to know, "I hardly think Thornseed's hiding dragons under those rickety bar-tables, mate."

Weasley sighed, looking like he really didn't want to be there.

"Look, I don't make the rules," Arthur said, "I just lead the Raiding Team. These orders came from further up. If you have a problem with them, feel free to lodge a complaint to the Ministry for the inconvenience of avoiding these establishments for the evening. Though if none of you are proprietors of these properties, you will likely be ignored when you lodge you complaints."

"Where the hell are we supposed to get a pint, Weasley?" Rockwood demanded, looking annoyed.

"Diagon Alley is still open," Weasley offered, "The Leaky Cauldron and the Smoking Quill would surely enjoy your business, gentleman."

"Not bloody likely," Toshka muttered, pulling out his hip flask and drinking from it deeply.

"This is a fucking joke," Bass growled.

"We could give it a go," Rodolphus suggested, "None of us have been to the Leaky in a long while. That little blonde thing always serves me whenever I go there. And with this place shut down, they'd be fools to turn us all away."

"With these place shut down, every cunt and his crup will be at the Leaky," Bass argued with his brother, heedless of the three year old boy propped on Rodolphus's hip as he used such foul language.

"Well, it's try our luck there, or congregate at Malfoy's place," Rodolphus retorted.

Everyone, including Malfoy Senior and Junior, shrugged at the idea. Malfoy Manor might be a fine place, but too much darkness had taken place in that house for their sakes.

"Come on," Thorfinn sighed, nudging Toshka, "Try the Leaky."

The whole lot of them were scowling and bitching the entire way up Diagon Alley and into the Leaky Cauldron. Thorfinn gritted his teeth when most of the patrons fell silent and glared in their direction as they filed in.

"Hannah," Theo Nott greeted the little blonde barmaid who was willing to serve them.

"Hi, Theo," Hannah smiled bright – had to be a bloody Hufflepuff, Thorfinn snorted, "What can I get you?"

"You can't serve them, Hannah," some bastard on the drinking side of the bar protested, "We don't want the likes of these bastards drinking here. Go back to Knockturn Alley!"

"Knockturn Alley's been closed for the night, MLE orders," Hannah snapped in retorted, "And you Jimmy Peakes will mind that tongue in your head or so help me, I'll cut you off and send you home to your wife before you're good a drunk enough to sleep through your new daughter's cries."

Peakes bared his teeth but looked away, obviously knowing when to pick his battles.

Everyone else in the bar looked no less pleased by their presence, but they grumbled to each other and went back to their drinking. Thorfinn ignored the black glares from the cunts and ordered himself a whiskey before meandering along with the other over to a booth that would fit them all. Rabastan only had to raise his eyebrows at the two young witches occupying it before the scurried away, whispering to one another.

Thorfinn rolled his eyes when one of them pointed in his direction. Just what they bloody needed, slags who wanted a little taste of darkness for the night. He'd leave the bullshit to Bass tonight. He was in no mood for getting laid when he could instead marinated in the feel and scent of Granger still on his skin.

"You fucking reek, you know?" Bass informed him, slotting into the booth before him and taking his nephew from Rodolphus's lap for a bit while he drank his whiskey.

"You know you want a taste," Thorfinn smirked in return.

"You've already fucked someone before getting here?" Bass confirmed, looking amused.

"Spent most of the afternoon fucking, actually," Thorfinn smirked over the rim of his glass.

"Anyone I know?" Bass grinned wickedly.

"Oh, you'd know of her," Thorfinn nodded, "But I'm not sharing, so keep your cock in your trousers and away from my witch."

"Oh, she's your witch, now?" Toshka smirked.

"She is today," Thorfinn shrugged.

Antonin rolled his eyes and drank his drink. Bass immediately turned his attention to grilling Toshka to tell him who it was. Thorfinn, on the other hand, turned his attention to hexing the cunt who tried to spit in their direction when passing their table. He was sneaky about it, but one minute the bastard was spitting at them, the next he was falling face first into a stool and tripping over his own shoelaces before subsequently landing in his own spittle.

"Fucking cunts," young Malfoy growled, leering at them all with displeasure when many of the patrons in the place continued to stare at them hatefully.

"Ignore them, mate," Theo rolled his eyes as he slid into the booth beside the kid, "Let's just have a bloody drink."


	7. Chapter 7

Harry had his arm slung around her shoulders and Hermione had her arm around his waist for warmth as they strolled up Diagon Alley and into the Leaky Cauldron. They both ignored the flash of a camera going off moments after they entered, some plucky photographer getting a shot he'd sell tomorrow morning for the bullshit story of the two being an item. Again. Given the number of times they'd run that story, Hermione no longer had any faith the idea of responsible journalism or in reporters in general.

"Ron and Ginny are both already here," Harry muttered. He sounded irritated, as though the sight of the redheaded siblings was not one that improved him mood.

"If I spill a drink on Ron for calling me a sloppy whore, do you think I'll be called a lush?" Hermione smirked up at Harry.

Harry laughed. "Not by me, love. I'll call you my hero."

"To be the hero of the famous Harry Potter?" Hermione pretended to swoon, clutching at her heart as though the very idea made her faint with dizziness.

"You've had too much wine already, woman," Harry accused. He tucked her into his side once more, steering her towards the bar and away from where Ginny and Ron were drinking with George, Fred, Angelina and Lee.

"You just said you wouldn't call me a lush!" Hermione swatted him.

"Hush up and let me buy you a drink." Harry laughed, dropping a kiss to the top of her head to the flash of several more cameras. "Hey there Hannah, how are you?"

"Harry! Hermione!" Hannah beamed at them, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Whiskey? Gods, how are you? It's been too long."

"Hannah, I saw you on Wednesday when Ron and I were in for lunch," Harry reminded the woman, chuckling.

"That was  _days_  ago, Harry!" Hannah rolled her eyes before fixing them both a whiskey the way they liked.

"How have you been, Hannah?" Hermione asked the woman, smiling at her widely as she accepted her drink.

"Oh, I'm grand, Hermione. Just grand," Hannah assured her. "Did I tell you that I'm seeing someone? Gods, I couldn't have. You weren't here last week."

"Oh, and who's the lucky bloke, Hannah?" Harry asked.

"Promise you won't laugh?" Hannah asked.

"Swear it." Harry chuckled.

"Do you remember Oliver Wood from school?" Hannah asked.

"How could we forget?" Harry chuckled. "You and Olly are seeing each other?"

"He asked me to dinner on Tuesday night." Hannah nodded. "Oh, it was lovely. Wine I didn't have to pour. Food I didn't have to cook. Gods, I could've snogged him just for that."

"Did you?" Hermione asked.

"Now, Hermione, a lady doesn't kiss and tell," Hannah teased. "But seriously, if you're ever stuck under mistletoe with that man, paws off, 'cause he's mine!"

Hermione laughed at her words before Hannah was called down the bar to fix some pints.

"So, you ready?" Harry asked, nodding his head towards the Weasleys.

"No. Gods, Ron is going to make a scene," Hermione grumbled. She turned into Harry's chest a little more, reaching for strength.

"Well, if it helps at all, Dolohov and Rowle are both here to set him straight about your whereabouts this afternoon should he go making any wild accusations."

Hermione's head jerked up and she winced when she spotted a whole table full of ex-Death Eaters across the crowded bar.

"What are they doing here?" she hissed. "Rowle said they don't like coming here because people are gits and spit on them, among other things."

"I imagine they're here to drink. Knockturn Alley is being raided tonight. Every business on the street, all in one go. We've been getting a lot of tip-offs down there that there's some illegal breeding going on and some fugitives being harboured. My Aurors are there, along with Arthur and some DRCMC chaps to investigate it all," Harry said. "Guess they had to drink somewhere, what with everything else being shut for the night and the Smoking Quill being the worst pub in England."

"You realise this will end in a duel, don't you?" Hermione frowned at him worriedly.

"It'll be fine. The only people in this place likely to start a duel with the Head Auror in the building are that mob. And they won't do it unless forced because they know I'll bust them and terminate their parole." Harry shrugged his shoulders at her. "Relax. If things get really out of hand with Ron, you can just march right over there and snog Rowle and we'll watch Ron's head explode, yeah?"

Hermione laughed in spite of herself.

"You have entirely too much fun torturing him sometimes, you know?"

"It's only fair. He shagged my secretary. And he cheated on the girl I happen to be in love with." Harry chuckled. "Come on. Fred's spotted us. They'll think we're avoiding them if we don't go and say hello."

"We  _are_  avoiding them," Hermione reminded him. "Is Ginny talking to you yet?"

"Not since she found out about Parkinson." Harry shook his head. "As though she has any right to complain? I know she's been fucking Zabini since we split."

"Zabini? Really?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows. "I didn't think he'd be her type. He's so snooty."

Harry laughed.

"I'm told it's all about cock-size." Harry rolled his eyes.

"She's taking a step down in the size department?" Hermione asked.

"See, this is why I love you." Harry laughed at her words. "You always know just what to say."

"You say that now, but two hours from now when I tell Ron he's lower than a pregnant snail, you'll scold me and accuse me of being a lush again."

"I would never," Harry assured her. "And if you actually call him that to his face, I'll buy you whatever you want from the bookshop the next time we go."

They were both laughing wickedly, arms still around one another when they approached their friends.

"It's about time you two got here," Angelina said by way of greeting, throwing herself at the pair of them.

Harry caught the pregnant witch before she could knock them both over.

"How are you, Angelina?" Harry asked the witch, righting her and giving her a hug before passing her over to Hermione, who hugged the woman as well.

"I'm going to murder the pair of them," Angelina declared. "I can't live like this. Look what they've done to me."

Angelina indicated to her rapidly thickening waistline, her pregnancy - twins, Hermione had been told - already bulging out of her jeans.

"It's wretched, I tell you!" Angelina went on, oblivious to the way Hermione cringed ever so slightly over the idea of the pregnant woman complaining to her about the woes of pregnancy as though she weren't green with envy. "I can't keep anything down and I've been craving the weirdest things you can think of. Salamander spleen. Can you imagine? Never mind that it's poisonous!"

Angelina proceeded to rave on for several minutes, bitching about all the supposed woes of being pregnant, and Hermione found herself clenching her glass too tightly and thinking about pitching it at Angelina's head. Harry gripped her a little tighter as though he could feel the acid words forming on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to lash out and wound the inconsiderate witch.

"I need another drink," Hermione muttered to him, downing the remainder of hers in one long gulp.

Harry nodded his head, realising she wanted an excuse to have a few minutes by herself without having to deal with the way Ron and Ginny both eyed her and Harry for cuddling, and without having to listen to Angelina be so bloody ungrateful. The more she thought about it all, the more it annoyed her. As she took Harry's glass before weaving her way back through the patrons crowding the bar, Hermione found herself shooting a glance towards the table where Thorfinn sat with his friends and fellow parolees. Merlin, it would be so easy to just go over there and suggest they go back to his flat and shag like bunnies all over again.

The temptation found Hermione ordering herself a cocktail rather than another whiskey, asking Hannah to mix her up Long Island Iced Tea and slurping it up greedily.

"Woah, easy there, Princess." Thorfinn Rowle practically purred in her ear.

Hermione jumped when she realised the big blond Death Eater had come up behind her where she leaned against the bar while Hannah poured another whiskey for Harry that Hermione could take back to him.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people," Hermione scolded him softly without turning to look at him, watching him snake one arm past her to grip the edge of the bar.

There was a slight disturbance from behind them and Hermione realised that Rowle had just braced to protect her from whatever was happening. A few shouts were heard before some drunk man hurled a chair towards the Death Eaters at their table, causing many of them to shoot to their feet with curses on their lips.

"You shouldn't look so pretty if you have plans to avoid landing back in my bed," Rowle countered before muttering a spell that tripped up the man hurling chairs and slinging insults before the pub's security guys escorted him out of there.

"Believe me, right now I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be," Hermione sighed. She let herself relax back against Rowle as she waited for Harry's drink, Hannah having been distracted by the disturbance within the pub.

"Don't tell me that, Princess," Rowle muttered in her ear. "Or I'll apparate us both right on out of here. I don't care what these fucks think about the idea of us shagging."

Hermione sighed. She could smell his cologne, only faint over the scent of what she realised was sex and her own feminine excretions that coated parts of him. Gods, she was tempted to take him up on that offer. She'd thoroughly enjoyed her dinner with Harry, but Angelina's inconsiderate behaviour had sent her mood plummeting towards darker waters where terrible things cruised beneath the surface, just waiting to leap free and wreak havoc.

"What are you lot even doing here, Rowle? I know your usual haunts are being raided tonight, but surely anywhere else would be better than somewhere that the other patrons throw chairs at you and your friends?" Hermione asked. She tipped her head slightly to meet his gaze over her shoulder.

"It's here or Malfoy Manor," Rowle shrugged. His chest brushed against her back, making her want to lean back against him until she dozed right off in his arms.

Gods, she felt like she could sleep for a week.

"I see why you picked here," Hermione sighed in understanding, a little shudder running through her at the idea of ever going back to Malfoy Manor.

Hannah arrived with the drink for Harry and Hermione realised she was going to have to go her separate way from Rowle once more, lest they draw curious looks. He was already getting enough of those just for standing so close to her.

"What can I get you, Rowle?" Hannah asked. Her mood had obviously deteriorated thanks to the mini-brawl that had just taken place.

"Another round for the lot of us," Rowle replied, ordering his drinks and passing the witch his money.

"Move, could you?" Hermione asked, bumping him slightly. "I have to get back to my friends before they investigate and make a scene. I think you and your friends have already done enough of that for one night. I don't need to add to it."

"You look miserable with all of them except Potter, you know?" Thorfinn asked her shrewdly without moving his arm from where he still gripped the bar and thus not letting her leave just yet. "Why spend time with those arseholes if they annoy you?"

"You spend time with people who annoy you, don't you?" Hermione asked.

"Not really," he answered. "I mean, they get on my nerves, occasionally. But for the most part, I just curse the ones I don't like and they're no longer an issue."

Hermione laughed and she was thinking she'd had too much to drink, because the fatal cursing of one's enemies was no laughing matter. Maybe she'd been spending too much time alone lately. Her work had been keeping her pretty secluded recently as she slaved to make everything perfect for the presentation she'd done today. Hermione was still feeling crushed that she'd not been chosen for the research grant, even if she did understand why. Studies pertaining to the use of Dementor's soul-sucking chill factor to fight climate change were more important and much more useful than whether or not wormholes would allow for travel between alternate universes.

"Sometimes I forget that you and your lot think differently to how my friends think," Hermione chuckled just the same. "If only it were as simple as disposing of those who irritate me. Then I'd be able to avoid being bitched to about the woes of pregnancy."

"That's what the witch with the braids was saying to you?" Thorfinn asked. "You looked like you were sucking on a lemon the whole time she was standing there. Thought for sure you were going to hex her."

"I was thinking about flinging my glass at her head," Hermione sighed.

"Oi, Miss is this bloke bothering you?" Some obnoxious arsehole suddenly intruded on their conversation, going so far as to reach out – past Rowle – to touch her arm.

Hermione glanced towards the wizard who'd spoken. A strapping man perhaps three or four years older than her stared back at her. He shifted his gaze to eye Thorfinn with distaste before frowning at Hermione as though concerned for her safety.

"Do I know you?" Hermione asked. Her bad mood bubbled further when she realised that whoever the man was, he obviously was a prejudiced arse who thought he was being gallant by intruding on her conversation just because Thorfinn happened to have placed himself around her at the bar in a way that, she supposed, looking threatening from an outside stand point.

"Probably not," the wizard chuckled. "I was a few years ahead of you at school. Travis Pinswizzle."

Hermione had to take a gulp of her drink to keep herself from giggling at the man's name.

"I see," Hermione managed when she choked on her drink while Thorfinn laughed darkly at the man's name.

"She's fine, Swizzledick," Thorfinn informed the wizard. "And I guarantee all the supposedly gallant acts won't win you any points with this witch."

"You're standing awfully close to her, Death Eater," Pinswizzle snapped. "Maybe you should go back to your little table with the other lowlifes and leave the lady be? It's clear that someone like Hermione Granger would never be interested in the likes you."

Hermione could practically feel the way Thorfinn slowly drew himself up to his full height, his hand gripping the bar so hard his knuckles went white and the wood began to groan. She had to fight the urge to laugh at the things she was sure someone like Thorfinn would do to the likes of this wizard. She also felt her temper flare at the prejudice and mean things the man said to someone Hermione had spent a good deal of time shagging.

"You said you name was Travis, right?" Hermione asked. She slipped her hand from the bar and back until she gripped Thorfinn's powerful thigh through his jeans, squeezing lightly to warn him against spewing the venom and fire she knew the man was capable of, all over the idiot.

"I did, yes," Travis Pinswizzle nodded. "You look very uncomfortable, Hermione – may I call you Hermione? – and I hardly think you want to be associating with the likes of this cretin."

Hermione tipped her head slowly to one side, gripping Thorfinn even tighter when she felt his thigh muscles jumper under her hand as though he were thinking about lunging at the bastard.

"Tell me something, Travis? When you came over here with you prejudiced little mind and your ignorant rudeness that you're hoping will pass for gallantry, what were you hoping to achieve?" Hermione asked. She affected the type of patronisingly curious tone she'd grown extremely good at using towards the end of her relationship with Ron.

"I… what?" Travis Pinswizzle stammered. His brow furrowed at her seemingly innocent tone delivering such acid words.

"Oh, did I use too big a word?" Hermione smirked. "I'm asking after your motives at the idea of 'rescuing' me from Rowle. You see, I find it incredibly curious that you actually seem to believe that approaching a woman you've never met and insulting the person she happens to be conversing with would get you into her good graces. Did you imagine you'd play the hero rescuing a damsel in distress?"

Hermione arched an eyebrow at the man, watching the way his cheeks slowly reddened while many of the people around them turned to listen, given that she wasn't at all speaking quietly. Many had already been listening and looking when Travis began picking a fight with the ex-Death Eater under the pretence of defending Hermione's honour.

"I…"

"You thought it would be a gentlemanly thing to do, to come over and butt in on my conversation for no reason other than your perceived idea of the type of man Rowle is, yes?" Hermione asked loudly. "You maybe thought you'd buy yourself a ticket into my knickers for being the big hero? Rescuing me from someone I just couldn't  _possibly_  be conversing with willingly? Is that it? You thought it a good idea to pick a fight in a bar with a man whom, I have no doubt, not only could but  _would_  happily wipe the floor with you? That you'd make a big scene and rescue the poor witch trapped in the clutches of a big bad ex-Death Eater?"

Pinswizzle's mouth opened and closed in surprise, as though he were a fish pulled from his safe little bowl and left to gasp and flop about impotently.

"Perhaps you might benefit from a little critique of your technique, Travis?" Hermione offered him a sickly-sweet smile. "When you so misguidedly came over here intent on defending my honour, you offered insult to me by assuming me incapable of handling gits like this one on my own."

Hermione tipped her head indicatively towards Rowle.

"You also made the mistake of rudely interrupting my conversation with an, oh so eloquent 'oi'. Did you actually imagine that a witch, any witch, would swoon and fall for the likes of a man whose first words to her were 'Oi'?" Hermione clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "Moreover, you followed that trollish utterance with a number of insults aimed at the company I happen to be keeping at this particular moment, in addition to making assumptions about my character and just what type of company you think I  _ought_  to be keeping."

Hermione shook her head at the man.

"I was just…" Travis tried to defend himself.

"So, in summary," Hermione spoke over the top of him. "You stuck your nose in where it wasn't wanted, insulted my integrity as a witch, insulted the company I'm keeping, assumed that I would be so shallow and pathetic as to judge a person based on past mistakes, and further demeaned my character by believing that doing those things would get you into my knickers. Did I leave anything out, Travis?"

Travis Pinswizzle's face was glowing a bright shade of crimson by the time Hermione looked away from him, stuck her straw between her lips, and gulped down the rest of her Long Island Iced Tea. He made a few choked seeming noise of in-articulation before he seemed to find his voice.

"I was just trying to be nice and do the right thing for a lady in a tight spot," Pinswizzle argued.

"You were trying to pick a fight with the biggest bloke in the bar," Hermione corrected him with a roll of her eyes. "And you misguidedly believed that doing so might endear me to you. Now, since you're obviously missing the point here, Swizzleswot, let me make things plain for you. I do no need to be rescued. I do not need the likes of any man assuming I'm some simpering little swot incapable of defending myself against male advances, wanted or otherwise. I also highly doubt that you will find many witches interested in the idea of being grunted at like some troll, or impressed by the likes of someone wanting to tilt at the idea of putting the supposed bad-boys in the room in what you believe ought to be their place. Run along back to whatever pitiful, ignorant little hole you crawled out of and don't bother speaking to me, or anyone else for that matter, until you've learned some manners and common decency."

Hermione flicked her fingers at him dismissively while his face mottled once more at her, admittedly bitchy, dismissal of him and his pathetic ideals.

"He's a Death Eater!" Pinswizzle growled hotly, his voice carrying over the avidly watching crowd.

"So?"

The idiot blinked at her for a moment when she raised her eyebrows at him.

"So someone like you shouldn't be talking to someone like him," Pinswizzle argued.

The first crackle of magic in Hermione's hair really ought to have been a warning.

"You really shouldn't have said that, mate," Harry Potter spoke quietly over the sudden silence in the bar that followed the man's words.

Hermione reached slowly for Thorfinn's hand where he still gripped the bar, prying it off and moving it aside as she stalked closer to the man who'd made the mistake of being an ignorant jackass.

"Someone like me?" Hermione asked, her left eye twitching as she closed the distance between herself and the idiot, " _Someone like me_ , is that what you just said, Pinswizzle?"

Travis Pinswizzle seemed to have finally realized his mistake as he attempted to back up a step.

"The last time anyone made assertions about  _someone like me_ ," Hermione hissed, her eyes flashing dangerously, "We all went to fucking war to, you ignorant, prejudiced, pathetic excuse for a human being. How  _dare_ you?"

She opened her mouth to continue but before things could get out of hand, Harry stepped in.

"Move along," Harry commanded. "I don't care about your arguments or your justifications or how you thought you were doing something decent. Just leave before I have to arrest anyone."

Pinswizzle opened his mouth to speak again but Harry took a small, threatening step in his direction and the wizard seemed to think better of it. Rather than continuing to be the centre of attention amid the rapidly souring atmosphere of the bar, the git Disapparated with a sharp crack. Hermione huffed out of a breath of annoyance.

"Let's get you another drink, shall we, love?" Harry asked.

Hermione huffed a second time before turning back to the bar. Hannah appeared, offering Hermione a fresh Long Island Iced Tea. She took it blindly and slurped it up through her straw. She almost didn't notice the way Thorfinn stared at her, his expression unreadable, before he patted her hand, collected his round of drinks and returned to his table across the bar without another word.


	8. Chapter 8

Thorfinn returned to his table with his anger still simmering, but a proud little smirk on his face. For a witch who'd been concerned about the idea of how her association with him might affect his chances at finding some other witch to bear his offspring, she'd just painted a big media target on both their backs. And Thorfinn didn't think he could be happier.

He'd been wondering, idly, how she really felt about his past choices and his history as a Death Eater. He could barely believe his ears that her only response to the idea was defending her own choices and a flippant sort of 'so?'

"What the fuck just happened?" Draco Malfoy asked when Thorfinn reached their table and began handing out drinks.

"Did Granger just defend you?" Bass asked him.

Thorfinn didn't comment. He was privately amused that despite her blood status, most everyone among their group referred to her not as a mudblood, but by her name. Many of them owed their freedom to her in one way or another. She might've fought for the Order, but the witch had been unabashedly honest throughout her questioning and her testaments at many of their trials. He knew for a fact that he, Toshka, both Malfoys and both Lestranges owed her for setting the record straight on their involvement in things she'd witnessed or been the victim of.

"What were you doing talking to her?" Rockwood wanted to know.

"Keeping her from being accidentally hit by that bastard when he started mouthing off," Thorfinn said.

"Fiery little thing when pushed, isn't she?" Rodolphus commented. Thorfinn watched the way the man's young son wriggled free of Bass's hold when Bass reached for his drink. The kid darted past Thorfinn's legs before he could catch him, disappearing amid the many legs of patrons within the bar.

"I thought you were the one with the hard-on for her, Dolohov?" Theo Nott drawled.

"I wouldn't put it that way," Toshka shook his head. His eyes were glued to the witch across the bar. Thorfinn slotted into his seat next to Bass and looked in Granger's direction as well.

"Oh?" Lucius Malfoy raised a single eyebrow in silent question.

Toshka ignored him. He always did when it came to questions about his fascination with Granger. Thorfinn was the only one who could get answers out of the git about her. And he wasn't feeling much like sharing right at that moment. Granger was still standing at the bar where Potter was overseeing the order of another beverage for her while she fumed to him quietly. He got the feeling from Potter's lack of reaction or comment pertaining to his being near Granger, that he'd already known Thorfinn had been shagging the witch.

Hell, he got the feeling that the pair of them kept no secrets from each other. In fact, he was thinking they bloody adored each other but it looked completely platonic when they'd walked into the pub arm-in-arm.

"Bloody prick," Toshka muttered.

"Don't kill him," Bass laughed. "He's hardly the first cunt to disparage the lot of us."

"First one to mess with Dolohov's favourite witch," Draco commented. The kid threw back his drink in long gulps.

"Don't kill him, even if he does deserve it," Bass repeated.

"Killing's boring," Toshka spoke up. He turned his eyes back to their discussion when Granger collected another drink, braced herself and made her way back towards the other Order members and the Weasley brats with Potter's arm around her shoulders once more. "If I killed everyone who annoys me, I wouldn't get to enjoy the delights of torturing, tormenting and otherwise taunting them into madness."

Cruel smirks were traded around the table before Lucius changed the subject to the political climate and whether Shacklebolt was going to overturn some House Elf Subjugation Act that Umbridge had passed years ago.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Two hours later found Hermione feeling particularly tipsy and thinking about how acceptable it would be to mount Thorfinn Rowle in a pub full of people. She'd managed to arrange herself in her chair at the table with their friends so that she could sneak glances at the table where the Death Eaters were sitting. Thorfinn had been steadily drinking all evening, just like she had.

"Are you listening?" Ginny demanded of her when Hermione's attention strayed to the sight of Rita Skeeter approaching the Death Eaters.

The woman was a menace. They'd come to an agreement many years ago to prevent Rita from writing about her, but Hermione suspected from the look on Rowle's face that he didn't like the tenor of the bitch's questions.

"Of course I am, Ginny," Hermione said. She darted a glance at the redhead. "I just don't see what you want me to say. If you're unhappy with the Harpies, see if there's any other team interested in taking you on. If not, maybe it's not the team but the game that's beginning to wear on you. Maybe you should think about retiring. You could go into Sports writing or something."

Ginny looked pensive at the suggestion. Harry rolled his eyes at Hermione from across the table. Hermione had to hide her smirk.

"Oh this is getting ridiculous!" Angeline suddenly griped. "I have to pee.  _Again_."

Unable to stomach anymore of the woman's bitching about her pregnancy, Hermione got off her stool and strolled away from her friends without a word. She'd intended to head to the bar to talk to Hannah while the girl continued pouring drinks and serving her patrons, but Rita's voice stopped her.

"So you have no comment about being fired from  _The Daily Prophet_ , Mr Rowle?" Rita asked.

Hermione caught the way Thorfinn was fingering his wand under the table.

"None," Rowle answered tightly.

"My sources at the office say otherwise," Rita sneered. "I'm told you threw a public fit and instigated a duel."

"How do you react when people spit on you?" Rabastan Lestrange asked snidely of the witch.

"Do you have a comment about Miss Granger's defence of you earlier this evening, Mr Rowle?" Rita pushed. She ignored Rabastan completely.

Before Thorfinn could open his mouth to answer her, Hermione made a beeline for their table. Many of the ex-Death Eaters eyed her. Most of them looked curious. Theo and Draco were both looking as though they believed Christmas was about to come early and that she'd give them all a show to laugh about. She wondered what they'd all thought of her earlier outburst with Pinswizzle.

Rather than speaking to any of them, Hermione tapped Rita on the shoulder. The Unregistered Animagus turned towards the touch, a polite 'fuck off' expression crossing her face to deal with whomever was touching her. The expression and the colour slipped from her features when she spotted Hermione. Rita jumped back from her in surprise, looking fearful of being forced into a jam jar once more.

"You! I have every right to question him, Granger," Rita immediately began making excuses for her behaviour.

"Shut up," Hermione told the woman, "I'm not here about that."

Rita looked even more concerned by that.

"I am within my rights to ask about your outbursts, Missy," Rita tried again.

"Would you stop being daft for ten seconds?" Hermione demanded of the woman, her tongue always barbed at the best of times, but extra prone to cutting remarks when she'd been drinking. "I need to speak to you. Privately. Now."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Rita protested, pulling her wand and aiming it at Hermione.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin, you paranoid little gnat!" Hermione bumped the wand tip away from herself before snatching the other witch by the wrist and dragging her closer. She pulled Rita in until she could whisper into her ear. When her words were delivered, Rita jerked back with a gasp of shock and fear. Her cheeks rapidly bloomed red.

"Thank you," Rita gasped. She Disapparated with a sharp crack.

Hermione smirked to herself as she stared at the spot the woman had vacated for a moment, a cruel little chuckle escaping her over her unkind prank. Turning back towards the bar, Hermione made to walk in that direction before one of the Death Eaters called her back.

"How did you do that?" Rodolphus Lestrange was staring at her when Hermione turned back to face them.

"Do what?" Hermione asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Get rid of her? She was afraid of you, but defensive and plucky enough to stand her ground until you whispered to her," Rodolphus said. He cocked his head to one side like a curious canine. "What did you tell her?"

Hermione grinned wickedly.

"That hardly matters, does it?" she asked. "The point is that she won't be showing her face for a little while, I imagine."

"You've got dirt on her?" Draco Malfoy raised his eyebrows.

"I do," Hermione nodded. "But I didn't need to use it to get rid of her. The dirt I have on her keeps her from reporting lies about me and my friends. It doesn't mean she won't loiter about for a scoop from any of us, if she can do so."

"What is it?" Theo Nott wanted to know.

"Can't tell you that, Nott," Hermione smirked.

She shot a glance at Thorfinn, finding him watching her with no small amount of heat in his eyes. He also looked intrigued, as though he was trying to unravel her like some complex Arithmancy problem. Hermione looked away before anyone could get the wrong idea. She got the feeling that he was really the type to share unless it would buy him something, so she didn't want to go giving away that they'd been shagging if she didn't have to.

"Oh, come on, Granger," Nott whined. "You can tell us. Who are we going to tell? We're not the blackmailing type."

Hermione actually snorted when her laughter came pouring out over the very idea or his assertion.

"If you lot aren't the blackmailing type, then I'm a bloody Hippogriff," Hermione wheezed several minutes later. The alcohol was making her a little giddy and Nott's words had tickled her pink.

"You don't have the arse for being a Hippogriff," Rabastan Lestrange informed her, looking her up and down, assessing her.

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult," Hermione admitted. She held the man's gaze for a long moment, noting the way a little smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth.

"Neither am I," he replied.

"Well, at least your honest. About  _this_ , anyway." Hermione shook her head, chuckling to herself once more. "Anyway, my glass is empty and I'm tired of listening to ungrateful bitches whining about their blessings. So, I'm going to go and get myself something stronger to drink. Good evening, gentlemen."

She nodded to the gathered group before turning on her heel and making her way across the bar once more. She caught the way Ron, Ginny, and even Luna were all eyeing her as though she had done something wrong by approaching them. Harry was watching her too, but there was a knowing glint in his eyes even as he chatted up some girl Hermione didn't recognise. She owuuld have to look into that. The bitch looked like she only want to shag Harry to claim the fame of it all.

Hell, the woman looked like a scandal waiting to happen if the plunging neckline of her dress and the greedy glint in her eyes was any indication.

"Hermione? What can I get you?" Hannah asked, bustling over.

"Something stronger than this," Hermione answered, holding out the empty glass she'd drunk her last gulp of Long Island Iced Tea from.

"Sweetie, are you sure you can handle something stronger than that? The next step up in probably Absinthe. Even the Death Eaters don't drink that stuff." Hannah frowned at her worryingly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Let me put it this way. If I have to listen to Angelina bitch about her pregnancy symptoms one more time, I'm going to hex her.  _And_  I need to go over there and make sure that gold-digger Harry's chatting up isn't going to purposely get knocked up by my best friend just to get her hands on his fame and his Gringott's vault. So I'm thinking that a little Absinthe will go a long way to cooling my fury."

"Oh, Sweetie," Hannah sighed. She shook her head sympathetically, knowing too well about Hermione's woes over her inability to get pregnant. In the brief estrangement between Hermione from the Weasley's after Ron had cheated on her, Hermione had found a willing ear, and a sturdy shoulder to cry on in Hannah Abbott.

She was a sweet girl who lived up to her Hufflepuff nature. Kind. Loyal. Utterly reliable and funny to boot. Hermione rather adored the witch. She'd poured her troubles into Hannah's willing ears when she'd broken things off with Ron, and again when she'd had her tests and found that she was basically barren. Hannah knew – all too well – that sometimes Hermione got a bit frustrated with people who whinged about the things they took for granted. Especially when they whinged to those less fortunate.

While Hannah reached for the bright green bottle on the top shelf of the display, Hermione peered around the bar wondering who she could chat to that would keep her from having to return to her friends for a while longer. She spotted some of the girls from the Harpies that she'd gotten to know through Ginny, but she wasn't in the mood for Quidditch talk. Her eyes strayed to Neville – who'd wandered away from their usual group and appeared to be avidly chatting with a pair of other wizards. She didn't know either of the men, but they were quite a bit older than Neville and from the animation in his movements, Hermione suspected she knew their topic. Plants. Neville never looked that enthused unless he was talking about his plants.

Just as she was thinking she might join them to find out what was happening in the horticultural sector of the Wizarding World, there was a sharp tug on the hem of her dress. Hermione glanced in the direction of the tug, her brow furrowing when she spotted a small boy peering up at her.

"Hello?" Hermione greeted the child, glancing around to see if anyone was looking for the lost boy.

"Up?" the toddler asked reach both arms over his head. He clutched a stuff toy in one hand that looked rather like a werewolf. He gave her a gap-toothed smile when she looked back at her.

"Who do you belong to, handsome?" Hermione asked.

"Up? Up!" the boy demanded. His eyes were a vivid shade of green. His hair dark brown and slightly curly. He was adorable, if she was being honest. He didn't even look sticky, so that was a bonus.

"I don't know who you belong to, sweetheart," Hermione said. "I'll be in trouble for picking up a stranger's child without permission. Where's your Mum and Dad?"

"Zeke ups!" the boy repeated. He opened and closed one hand – the one not clutching his toy – in clear insistence that he be picked up.

"You can pick him up, Hermione," Hannah told her. Hermione glanced over at the woman behind the bar.

"Who does he belong to?"

"Someone who should be keeping a better eye on him. If you want to hold him – and he seems to have taken a shine to you – I can guarantee his father isn't going to mind. Isn't that right, Zeke?"

"Zeke ups now," the boy babbled.

Frowning, Hermione reached down and scooped him up, sliding her hands under his armpits and hoisting him high until she could prop him upon her hip.

"Should he even be here?" Hermione asked of Hannah.

"Not really, but his father is a sweetheart once you get to know him, and he doesn't get out much. Zeke's mum isn't around, so it's either bring him here when he comes out drinking, or leave him with a sitter. And most sitters to refuse to work with Zeke's father."

"Death Eater?" Hermione asked, knowing that expression on Hannah's face too well.

"You got it," Hannah nodded. "Trust me, Zeke needs all the motherly attention he can get. You could play with him all night and his father wouldn't object."

"Because he doesn't care about the kid?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowed as Zeke nuzzled his face into the side of her neck, laying his cheek on her shoulder as though revelling in the feel of being cuddled.

"Oh, he cares. He's got his eye on you right now, holding his son. But if you're willing to cuddle him all night, and Zeke permits it, he won't prevent you from doing so. Not unless you look like you might be endangering Zeke or being inappropriate. Which we all know you'd never do."

"Do I want to know who his father is?" Hermione raised one eyebrow.

"Probably. But I'm not going to tell you," Hannah smirked. "Play with him. I know you want to."

Hermione took the drink she'd been offered from Hannah, carrying it in one hand while supporting the small boy with the other. He clung to her tightly, not squirming or whinging, just simply letting himself be held.

"Where would you like to go, little one?" Hermione asked of the boy.

Zeke lifted his head to blink at her before laying it back down without speaking.

"Not a big talker, eh?" Hermione smiled. "Well, that's alright. How's about you and I head on over and talk to Neville? He'll be your Herbology Professor at Hogwarts one day, you know? Won't that be fun? You'll be able to tell stories of that time you were little and you hung out with Professor Longbottom at the pub."

Hermione smiled when the little boy giggled at Neville's surname.

"He does have a funny name, doesn't he? But that's not his fault. And he's lovely. You'll like him, I promise."

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Thorfinn watched the witch cross the bar with Izekiel Lestrange balanced on her hip and a glass of Absinthe in her hand. She hadn't been kidding about the idea of stepping up her drinking to something stronger. That stuff would burn a hole in her gut if she wasn't careful. He was betting it was going to knock her on her arse, too.

Thorfinn smirked to himself as he took another drink, wondering what the odds were that he'd get to take her home, after all. Merlin's saggy Y-fronts, he wanted to. The sight of the petite little witch, her hair beginning to curl out of control, dressed in her pretty party dress, with the small boy propped on her hip was entirely too arousing for his sense of mental stability.

Since his parole, Thorfinn had been dreading the idea of having to knock up anyone, let alone some muggleborn or half-blood witch who would likely only let him get her pregnant during a one-night-stand. He wasn't ready for kids. When he had them, he wanted to raise them right. He wanted them to grow up with a Dad they could be proud of, not a Dad who would land on the front page of the  _Prophet_  as a result of being spat on and subsequently fired.

He didn't want to bring a kid into a world where people would hiss at him before being the spawn of a Death Eater. Hell, he'd made his choices and he'd paid for them, but Thorfinn didn't want his kids growing up in the shadow of their father's mistakes, tainted by their blood tie to someone who'd fought for the wrong side and done bad things. If he was completely honest, Thorfinn had thought he'd die a bachelor, without an heir to his name. His fortune would fall to his sister's kids – when the Ministry released it upon his death – and all would be well.

Now, looking at that curly haired little witch who came so sweetly on his cock and his fingers and his tongue, Thorfinn was thinking kids weren't such a terrible idea. Sure, they'd have a dead-beat for a Dad in the eyes of the wizarding world. But if their Mum was someone as well-known and as  _good_  as Hermione Granger… well, they wouldn't be spat on, now would they? Mostly because while he'd rip the head off anyone who thought about doing anything like that to his kid, he'd also just seen hard proof that the fiery little witch could hold her own and wouldn't stand for prejudice.

Watching her as she took a seat beside the Longbottom kid, Thorfinn frowned slightly. She shifted Zeke on her lap, arranging him in a way that Thorfinn was thinking the kid was going to fall asleep on her. Hell, if the Longbottom lad knew he was conversing with the son of a man convicted for torturing his own mother and father into madness, it would turn ugly. But Granger seemed right at home with the little boy on her lap. She was good with the kid. Especially for a woman who believed she couldn't have any of her own.

She was chatting animatedly to Zeke, taking his toy from him and inventing some sort of wild game before pulling out her wand and subtly bringing the toy to life. Zeke's peel of laughter at the way the werewolf toy suddenly pounced at him could be heard clear across the pub. Merlin's bollocks, the witch looked like she was having the time of her life.

The longer he watched her playing with the small boy, the more resolute Thorfinn became that he would make her his witch and get her pregnant. Whatever it took.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

"Hermione? Whose child have you absconded with?" Harry asked her sometime later.

Hermione looked over, surprised to find Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna and the twins all watching her curiously.

"No idea," she admitted before tickling Zeke's sides once more and delighting in the way he giggled.

"You stole someone's kid?" Ron asked. Hermione felt the hair's on the back of her neck rise simply at the sound of his voice. After what a sod he'd been to her earlier, she was in no mood to even acknowledge his existence.

"His father knows I've got him," Hermine replied.

"You just said you don't know who he belongs to," Ron argued.

"Does that automatically mean that his father isn't watching him?" Hermione countered, her temper flaring.

"Before this devolves," Harry interrupted. "Are you drinking Absinthe?"

"Oh. Yeah," Hermione winked at Harry. "It's good, too. You should try it."

"What were you doing talking to those Death Eater cunts, Hermione?" Ron asked. Hermione could tell from the look on Harry's face that he was annoyed that Ron was obviously in the mood for a fight. The slur of his words as he spoke suggested that he'd been drinking pretty heavily all night and he was probably still smarting about the goat-related curse Dolohov had inflicted upon him.

"Hey Zeke? What sound to goats make?" Hermione pretended to ignore Ron.

"Baa-aa-aa-aa," Zeke bleated.

"That's right. Goats say Baa-aa-aa-aa. Isn't that funny, Ron? Don't you think that's such a funny sound?"

Hermione looked up at Ron coldly, watching his cheeks and his ears turn crimson.

"Fuck you, you bitch! I knew you were in league with that fucker well before we split!" Ron snarled.

"Easy, mate," Neville said, standing up suddenly at Ron's immediately offensive stance and cold words.

"You know, every time you open your mouth, I find myself thinking all over again about just how pleased I am that I didn't make the mistake of marrying you, Ronald," Hermione said coldly, her voice taking on a steely edge. "You're obviously incredibly thick and feel the need to lash out irrationally at others in an attempt to hide your own short-comings. I've never been  _in league_  with Dolohov and the fact that I never fell pregnant with your children is the only bright spot amid the tragic fact that I  _can't_  have them at all. In future, I would appreciate it if you'd do me the courtesy of not speaking to me from now on. You've now called me a sloppy whore and a bitch all in one day. You deserved what that curse did to you and you deserve whatever unhappy future I do no doubt is coming for you."

With that said, Hermione got to her feet, intent on stalking away.

"Oh, I deserved it, did I?" Ron snarled. "Well you know what, Hermione? You deserve to be barren. You  _deserve_  to suffer the way you do from that fucking curse. You're not fit to be anyone's mother. You're too much of a stuck-up swot with a stick up your arse, always looking down your nose at others as though you think you're so much better than the rest of us just because you're clever. Well clever isn't everything, is it? Especially when you couple it with being frigid, cold-hearted bitch and a sanctimonious slut, to boot."

"Pretty sure frigid and slut don't go together, Ron," George deadpanned, used to seeing his younger brother flying off the handle at his ex-fiancé by now.

"Fuck off, George."

Hermione turned slowly towards Ron, intent on ripping him a new one but before she could, there were suddenly four wands pointing at Ron's throat. Turning quickly, expecting it might be Harry, Luna, Neville and Ginny coming to her defence – or, at the very least, the defence of the small boy in her arms bearing witness to Ron's bile – Hermione blinked in shock to see Dolohov, Rowle, and both Lestrange brothers glaring at Ron hatefully.

"Easy now," Harry said.

"Control your fucking friend, Potter," Rodolphus Lestrange hissed. "Or we'll control him for you."

"What the fuck?" Ron growled. He attempted to knock Thorfinn's wand away from where it was digging into his carotid artery. "Now you're in league with all of them? What? Are you shining their knobs too? Is that it? Hermione Granger, Death Eater Whore."

Harry punched him.

Hermione blinked in surprise as Ron reeled back, colliding with a table and knocking his head against a nearby pillar.

"What the fuck was that for?" Ron demanded.

"Get out, Ron. Fred? George? Can you take him home before he does something else I'm going to make him regret?" Harry asked tightly.

"You always fucking side with her," Ron snapped. "Why the fuck are you _always_  on her side? You know how condescending she is! She just said she's fucking happy she's barren because it meant she didn't have to have my fucking kid! Meanwhile she sits in the bloody pub playing with some stranger's spawn. Probably one of these twisted fuckers."

He waved a dismissive hand towards the ex-Death Eaters still training their wands on him.

"Please, can I kill him now?" Dolohov asked Hermione in a low voice. "I promise I'll do it slow. I'll make him really suffer for being such a cunt to you,  _Zaichik_."

"No one is killing anyone!" Harry snapped. "For fuck's sake."

Harry stomped across the small space between himself and Ron before seizing hold of the idiot by the front of his robes and Disapparating them both with a sharp crack. Hermione shook her head, huffing to herself as the remaining crowd within the bar – which, admittedly wasn't that many people, now that she was looking – all looked in her direction. She got the feeling most of them expected her to cry after Ron had been such a snot to her. The truth was, some of his words might've hurt, but she was long past letting Ronald Weasley's opinion of her affect her self-esteem. Sure, she might go home later and cry into her pillow over his saying she  _deserved_ to be barren, but right now, she was too angry and too disgusted with him to even think about crying. Especially in front of so many witnesses.

"What say we get you out of here, Princess?" Thorfinn muttered to her.

Hermione nodded her head.

"Wait, you're actually going with them?" Ginny asked, eyeing the ex-Death Eaters with distaste.

Neville looked like he wanted to hex the Lestrange brothers silly.

"Now  _you're_  going to start?" Hermione demanded of the redhead, entirely fed up with Weasleys for the evening. "Your brother is an arse and you're going to give me flack for being on speaking terms with people who aren't flipping Weasleys?"

"Oi, don't lump us in with that idiot," Fred protested. "He's a git. Everyone knows that. We've been claiming he was left on our doorstep since we were tots."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, ickle Ronniekins is a bloody ponce. Don't worry about him, Hermione. And Ginny, shove it. If Hermione wants to associate with ex-Death Eaters, she's entitled."

"Now you're promoting this?" Ginny demanded.

"We do business with half of them," Fred shrugged his shoulders. "They're not  _all_  bad."

"Thanks, Weasley," Rabastan Lestrange drawled. He was smirking as he pocketed his wand once more.

"What are you two doing over here, anyway?" George queried curiously. "I mean, Dolohov's got a hang-up, and Rowle's in Hermione's debt for sticking her neck out earlier. But you two have bugger all to do with Hermione."

"No one gets violent in that proximity to my kid without answering to me," Rodolphus answered. He pocketed his own wand once more before holding his hands out to take Zeke from Hermione.

"He's yours?" Hermione asked. She was shocked when the little boy's face lit up and he squirmed in her hold, only too happy to go to his father.

"Don't sound so horrified, witch," Rodolphus winked. "They did stipulate we had to breed to keep our freedom. And I wasn't risking being thrown back into that hellhole."

"You… He's…?" Hermione blinked slowly.

"I know what you're thinking," the dark wizard said. "He's not Bella's. Zeke's three. His mother isn't in the picture. She dumped him on me and ran for it the minute he was born."

Hermione winced sympathetically, watching the way he arranged the toddler on his hip with practised ease. Zeke snuggled right in, closing his eyes and looking like he'd drop right off to sleep on his father's shoulder. Her heart melted, just a bit. The little tyke was adorable and Hermione supposed that if he felt that comfortable in his father's arm, the Lestrange brothers couldn't be all  _that_  bad.

"Well, he's a wonderful boy," Hermione offered quietly, smiling gently at the child. Rodolphus nodded his head, puffing up ever so slightly with pride at the praise for his son from a person who had every right to hate him. He didn't say anything else, but he did nod at her in farewell before crossing the bar to where many of the other ex-Death Eaters were all on their feet and looking like they were planning to head out for the night.

Hermione noticed idly that Draco Malfoy had his arm around a dark haired witch and Theo Nott had a witch under each arm, one blonde and one redhead. She didn't recognise any of the three witches, but they looked rather like they were only interested in saying they shagged a 'bad boy'. She rolled her eyes to herself when Theo had the audacity to wink at her.

She startled when the sound of someone inhaling loudly, right by her ear, suddenly drew her attention. Expecting Dolohov, Hermione recoiled violently when she spotted Rabastan Lestrange well inside her personal space.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Thought I knew that scent from somewhere," Rabastan said, a wicked smirk curving his lips. He swaggered away without explanation, patting Thorfinn on the arm as he went. Hermione got the message loud and clear that Thorfinn apparently still reeked of her.

Her cheeks flushed crimson.

"Well, that was creepy," Neville muttered.

"Bloody weird, that one," George agreed. "Oi, you two going to keep loitering? You're cramping our style."

"Weasley, you wouldn't know style if it bit you on the arse," Thorfinn replied.

"Oooh, not very friendly," Fred laughed. "Heard tell you lost your job today, Rowle?"

"What's it to you?" Thorfinn asked. Hermione's eyes darted between her friends, the man she'd been shagging, and the man who'd been stalking her.

"You want a job?" George offered.

"Yeah, we need someone to acquire some of the more refined ingredients we use in our potions and our tricks," said Fred.

"Someone to procure invaluable items necessary for our craft," said George.

"In other words, some of their stuff is illegal to traffic and they want someone willing to traffic it for them," Hermione clarified.

"You lot trying to get me sent back to prison?" Thorfinn raised one eyebrow before tipping his glass to his lips, apparently confident enough in his ability to maim Ron one-handed that he hadn't put it down when coming to Hermione's defence.

"The things we need aren't illegal," Fred shook his head. "They're just…"

"Unsavoury to acquire by normal means when one has an upstanding reputation within the wizarding community to uphold," said George.

"Unsavoury, eh?" Thorfinn asked. Hermione wondered if he'd be offended by the insinuation that he didn't have an upstanding reputation to worry about.

"It's fine if you're not interested," Fred shrugged. "We'll get our hands on someone else to handle it. Used to do it ourselves, but we've got a kid on the way, see? Doesn't look right, us going on into dangerous territory – dangerous for us, anyway – when we've a pregnant witch worrying herself silly for us at home."

"You need shit from Knocturn Alley, then?" Thorfinn asked.

"And other, less favourable places," George confirmed. "Come by the shop during opening hours tomorrow and we'll discuss it, if you like?"

Thorfinn looked thoughtful for a moment and Hermione wondered if he would take it. When he shot a glance in her direction, those bright blue eyes of his meeting her own brown pair as though he were considering it, Hermione felt her stomach do a somersault.

"Yeah, alright," Thorfinn agreed. He turned back to George and shook his hand before doing the same to Fred. Hermione's stomach flipped again at the idea that the former Death Eater would be working with her friends. That she might potentially run into him more often as a result.

"Excellent," said Fred. "Well, on that note, I'm going home. Coming George?"

"Right behind you, Fred," George agreed. "Hermione, love, sorry Ron's a tosser. Let us make it up to you sometime, eh?"

"Do you have that kind of time?" Hermione asked sarcastically.

Fred laughed.

"For you, we'll make time."

Hermione rolled her eyes and hugged the twins goodbye.

"I should head off too," Neville said. "Gran will be wondering where I am."

Taking that as their cue, everyone else seemed ready to head on home for the night and Hermione sighed as she downed the last of her drink.

"Want me to take you home,  _Zaichik_?" Dolohov offered.

"And have you figure out where I live? Again?" Hermione asked.

Thorfinn laughed.

"You really think he doesn't already know?" he asked.

"Oh, for the love of Merlin!" Hermione grumbled, glaring at Dolohov.

"I'm the best curse breaker in the business," Dolohov told her smugly. "You didn't think a little Fidelius Charm would actually keep me out, did you?"

"It has been," Hermione argued.

"Nah, I just didn't want to scare you now that you're living alone. And there was little point breaking in without the Used Weasel there to torment."

"You're incorrigible," Hermione accused.

"Maybe, but it's growing on you," Dolohov smirked. "Are you coming home with us?"

Hermione's eyes widened at his question.

"Toshka? Fuck off, yeah?" Thorfinn spoke up, looking amused. "She's hardly going to agree to coming home with me if you're the one putting it to her. You're a creepy fucker."

"I wouldn't say creepy," Dolohov disagreed, turning to Thorfinn and frowning. "More like eccentric. Or quirky."

"You're bonkers, mate," Thorfinn corrected.

Hermione shook her head at the pair of them as Dolohov began to explain that he couldn't be bonkers because bonkers people didn't know they were bonkers, that was what made them bonkers. Not willing to be seen leaving the pub with Thorfinn after the type of evening she'd had, Hermione gathered her things, moved to the bar and bid Hannah goodnight before hurrying out the door.

She got all of five meters down the street in Muggle London before a strong arm snagged around her midsection from behind.

"You really going home alone, Princess?" His voice was just a little too familiar in her ear.

"The other option is re-join you in your flat. Where Dolohov will likely want to continue to study the effects of his curse on me during intercourse," Hermione reminded him. "And I'm a little too fried to tolerate his quirks without hexing him."

"We could go to your place," Thorfinn murmured to her, lowering his mouth to the side of her neck and trailing a searing line of kisses against her sensitive skin. "I  _know_  you don't want to go home alone. You'll just wallow over what that fuck-face said to you."

Hermione sighed, tipping her head to give him better access. He was probably right. If she went home now she felt tipsy enough that she'd end up thinking herself into a tizzy and she didn't particularly want to do that. Ron wasn't worth the tears she expected would fall as a result of his obnoxiousness.

"You haven't even showered after the last round," Hermione said.

"There's a shower at your place, right?" Thorfinn chuckled.

"You're a bad influence, Thorfinn Rowle," Hermione scolded softly even though a smile was pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"You like it," he replied.

She supposed she couldn't deny that. Twisting in his hold, Hermione went up on her toes and capture his mouth with hers. He tasted like firewhiskey. And he felt like something heady and delicious. Heat flared within her immediately and all notions of further resistance went out the window.

"Hold on to me," she whispered when she pulled back several minutes later, her breath ragged. His wicked chuckle accompanied them as Hermione Apparated them both to her flat.


	9. Chapter 9

She kissed him the whole way into the bathroom, fumbling with the taps while he stripped her out of her clothes. Hermione's whole body was on fire, her breath coming in sharp gasps at the deliciously sinful taste of his tongue against her own. Thorfinn hissed between his teeth when he stepped under the stream of water pouring from the tap before it was warm but he didn't move.

He pulled her in along with him and Hermione tore her lips from hers with a gasp at the shock of icy water sliding across her nipples. Had they not already been pebbled into rosy peaks from his touch, they would have stood at attention at the cold.

"Fix the temperature," she muttered against his neck when she trailed her lips against him, revelling in the faint scratch of his stubble against her skin.

He did as he was asked, though he seemed to suffer a minor moral dilemma when doing so meant he had to pry his hands off her arse. While he fiddled with the taps, Hermione reached for her sponge and the soap, lathering it thickly and beginning to smooth soapy circles over his flesh.

"Are you seriously bathing me, Princess?" he chuckled.

"You're literally covered in my scent and the scent of stale sex, Rowle," Hermione replied. "Which, by the way, you're lovely friends seemed to enjoy pointing out. Did you tell  _all_ of them that you're shagging me, or just Rabastan?"

"I didn't tell a soul," he answered. He held still while she scrubbed at his chest and his washboard abs, his fingertips pinching her nipples gently and rolling them in a way that was making her brain go fuzzy.

"How did he know, then?" Hermione challenged, smiling slightly to herself when she discovered he was ticklish as she spread soapy circles across his ribs.

"He could smell it on me, and I might've goaded him about not needing to go out to pick up for the day," Thorfinn said, trying to squirm out of her reach when she tickled him with the sponge some more.

"Is he likely to tell everyone?" she asked.

"Probably. Bass isn't the best at keeping secrets."

Hermione sighed. Just what she needed. More people thinking she was shagging Rowle. She could just see the headlines now.

"And you're alright with them knowing?" she confirmed.

"Doesn't bother me, Princess," Thorfinn shrugged his massive shoulders, now pressed against the wall thanks to the way she'd cornered him with the sponge. "That lot aren't going to care who I'm fucking. If anything, they might taunt you about it to try to sweet talk you into bed with them, instead."

"But I'm muggle-born," Hermione protested, ceasing her scrubbing to stare up at him in confusion.

He shrugged, grinning slightly when her eyelids fluttered thanks to the attention he was paying her nipples.

"They're all shagging half-bloods and muggleborns, Princess. Part of our parole says we have to. No use bedding pureblood witches when they can't give any of us the heirs we need to keep our sorry arses out of prison, is there?" he said, taking the sponge from her and dropping it to the floor before he scooped his huge hands under the backs of her thighs and hiked her up his body. "And if we're all going to have to shag half-bloods and muggleborns, the whole lot of us would prefer to shag the prettiest ones, and the smartest ones for the sake of our potential spawn. You won't see any of the lads sweet-talking birds who're thicker than stumps or ugly trolls."

"Delightful, more prejudice to replace the blood purity," Hermione deadpanned.

"It's not prejudice, it's an interference with natural selection," he told her. "We're all charged with breeding, see? And if you're going to breed, you want to make sure your kid is going to either be good looking, or smart. Preferably both. Especially since some of the older pureblood lines need a good injection of looks or smarts. You've seen the Goyle and the Bulstrodes, right? If we're all breeding outside the pureblood circles, you better believe we're going to do it with the sake of the bloodline still in mind. It might dilute the magical purity, but if it injects something in its place, it's more socially acceptable. These are the lies we tell ourselves to overcome years of brainwashing and blood prejudice."

"In other words, snobbery." Thorfinn laughed at her assessment but he didn't deny it. Hermione tipped her head as she met his gaze. "So, did you settle for looks, or smarts?"

He grinned. "I landed both, Princess. If I can knock you up, we'll have the smartest, prettiest kid there is."

"Even if they have my hair?" she asked.

"You've seen my hair, right?" he asked. "The kid will have big hair, but they'll be smart and pretty, with a killer batting arm for Quidditch, I'd reckon."

"Assuming it's a boy," she said. "In your hypothetical scenario."

"Hypothetically, you seem to be under the delusion that we'd stop at just one," Thorfinn smirked in return. "Trust me, Princess. If I can talk you into letting me knock you up and it takes, you better believe I'll be wanting to do it more than once."

"Yes, I seem to recall vague memories of your stamina when it comes to doing it more than once," Hermione laughed.

Thorfinn grinned smugly. "Exactly. Now, hush up and let me fuck you full of our demon-spawn, witch."

Hermione was still laughing against his lips when he adjusted her in his hold and impaled her on his big cock, making her groan in a combination of ecstasy and agony because she'd been so well-fucked so many times already that day, and because – despite that – it felt amazing to have him inside her all over again.

And if she suffered pleasing daydreams of what a little boy with his eyes, her curls and his blond mane might look like while he hard-fucked her into the wall, well, no one had to know.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Thorfinn groaned softly, coming awake to the feel of a hot, clever tongue racing up the underside of his cock. Sweet fucking Circe, this witch would be the death of him. His eyes still closed in bliss, he hissed between his teeth in appreciation when her warm mouth engulfed the tip of his cock, tongue swirling around it like she'd just been given her favourite lollipop.

The feel of her hand smoothing up and down the length of his cock while she nibbled and licked the tip of it made his eyes cross with pleasure and Thorfinn fisted his hands into her wild curls. He loved the way the unruly tendrils wrapped around his fingers, snagged around his wrists and felt so soft and springy in his grip. Fuck, he loved her hair. He'd admit that much freely. Every curly strand of it. He liked putting his hands in it. He liked gripping her by it when he got rough between the sheets with her the way he'd learned she liked. He especially liked the way she groaned when he fisted it to pull her to him for another snog.

"Fuck, Baby-girl, you know how to wake a man up right," Thorfinn muttered, his hips twitching with the urge to take control and fuck her mouth until he exploded. She hummed cheerfully in reply, bobbing her head down the length of his cock as far as she could before withdrawing, hollowing her cheeks as she sucked him hard enough that he wasn't going to last long at all.

She built to a rhythm quickly, sucking what she could take, her hands wrapped around what she couldn't. Thorfinn was breathing hard, resisting the urge to ravish her, thinking about pulling her back up his body just so he could impale her on his cock and watch her ride him, slow and easy. At least, he was thinking that until he heard the sound of someone knocking on the door to her flat.

His eyes opening, Thorfinn tried to think past the haze induced by oral sex. Granger paused in her sucking, Thorfinn's cock slipping from her mouth with a wet 'pop' as she lifted her head, peering toward the door in panicked confusion.

"Who in the world…?" she muttered, making like she might get off him to find out who would be at her door.

"Hey, you're not done, Princess," Thorfinn protested. "Don't you go anywhere."

She laughed at him, licking the weeping slit of his cock and sinking her mouth back over him hungrily even as the knock sounded again. Thorfinn's breath hitched. So fucking close. She hummed when he bucked again, trying to push him over the edge.

"I'm going to come," he warned her raggedly, his heart racing inside his chest. She sucked harder, her hands and mouth working in tandem to bring him undone. Thorfinn groaned softly at the scald of heat through his veins, tightening his bollocks and winding him up before everything exploded. The fireworks behind his eyes; the come from his dick; the heat inside his chest. It all burst forth and Thorfinn's groan trailed to a slight whimper when his favourite witch sucked the come right out of his cock, swallowing every drop.

She released him slowly, sitting up and wiping her mouth before getting to her feet and searching for her housecoat. Thorfinn watched her from the bed, his brain muzzy with bliss and his subconscious telling him to pull the naked little minx back down on top of him just as soon as he remembered how to use his legs. The sound of distant, more insistent knocking from the front door had her hurrying out of the room, her wand held tight in her grip.

Thorfinn sat up, needing to get out of bed, not liking the idea that the witch felt the need to pull her wand just because someone knocked on her door. Dragging himself out of bed, his knees wobbled only once as he flicked his wand to perform some cleaning charms on his clothes and his body before pulling his jeans back on. He didn't bother with his shirt when, from the living room, he suddenly heard Granger exclaim in shock.

"What are you doing here?" she gasped and Thorfinn narrowed his eyes, forgetting his shirt and heading for the door.

"It's Saturday, darling," a female voice said. "You agreed to having brunch with us this morning… did you forget? Are you alright, sweetheart? You've turned very pink. You're not ill, are you?"

Thorfinn stalked into the room to lay eyes on a woman perhaps in her mid-fifties with wildly curly brown hair shot through with grey. She cupped Hermione's cheek and watched her with a worried little frown. Beside that woman, a slightly balding man bounced on the balls of his feet as he looked about Hermione's flat with interest. Almost immediately, Thorfinn realised what had drawn his attention.

In their fervour to devour each other the night before, they'd knocked over a pile of books on her coffee table, knocked a pile of letters to the floor in the kitchen and tipped over a teapot and both cups at the kitchen table. It looked a mess.

Worse, it looked like all three spots had been upset by rigorous shagging. Something Thorfinn was thinking her father wasn't thrilled about. Pressing his lips together to try and control the extremely smug grin that threatened to climb his face, Thorfinn flicked his wand, watching the books, the letters and the teapot all right themselves quickly before he shot another spell at the kettle to fill it and set it to boil.

He swaggered into the living room, still shirtless, and thoroughly enjoyed the way both of Granger's parents turned to looked at him. Their mouths hung open in shock at the size of him in their daughter's small flat. Granger turned to face him, her eyes widening in horror when she realised he was half-naked. And that he was sauntering about, only too happy to have her parents know she was shagging him. Indeed, when he sauntered close enough, his Cheshire cat grin wide and gloating, to press a kiss to her cheek, she looked like she might hex him.

"Morning, Princess," he practically purred against her skin. "Want a cup of tea?"

Hermione Granger looked like she was going to murder him, and Thorfinn found himself thinking that this might almost be as much fun as shagging her.

"Uh..." she said inarticulately, "Um..."

"I'm Thorfinn," he offered his hand to her mother to shake, watching the way the woman's jaw dangled limply while her brown eyes tracked the full length of his body and back again.

She shook his hand distractedly.

"Thorfinn?" her father asked, obviously taking one look at him and not approving in the slightest. No doubt thanks to the evidence of rigorous shagging.

"And... you are?" Thorfinn asked, pretending at his most refined form of manners and enjoying the way it made Granger blush that her parents were making such a deer-in-the-headlights first impression.

"Arnold Granger," the muggle said, taking the hand Thorfinn offered to him and squeezing it tight enough that it would undoubtedly have hurt someone less manly. "Hermione's father. This is her mother, Genevieve."

"Pleasure," Thorfinn practically purred, only too aware that he looked entirely like the cat who got the canary. "Tea?"

Arnold Granger looked annoyed at his lack of a wince before releasing his hand.

"Don't you think you should put a shirt on, Rowle?" Granger asked when she finished spluttering incoherently in her building rage.

"All in good time, Baby-girl," he grinned at her over his shoulder whilst using his wand to make the tea, filling Granger's largest teapot and finding four mugs. He levitated all of them towards the small dining table, entirely too amused for his own good.

"Or you could put one on now," she countered. "You know? Before you take someone's eye out."

"You're the one still in your housecoat, Princess. Don't get snippy with me just because you haven't had your morning cuppa yet," Thorfinn chastised lightly, grinning all the more. "Why don't you run on in and get yourself dressed appropriately for brunch with your folks while I enthral them with tales of how you're spending your youth?"

"Why don't you come with me and put a shirt on?" she counter-offered. The way she was glaring at him and the frostiness of her voice suggested she was less than pleased about the notion of him making certain to meet her parents.

Obviously she hadn't worked out yet that for all the teasing lilts in his tone when he mentioned fucking her full of his spawn, she  _would_  be the mother of his children one day. Thorfinn considered it rather important to meet his future in-laws.

"If we both go in there, you know what will happen," he smirked at her, shooting a wink in her direction that both of her parents spotted.

Genevieve looked surprised and then secretly pleased, a little grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. Arnold looked like he wanted to skin Thorfinn alive.

"Imagine what might happen out here if you continue antagonising me," Granger replied and Thorfinn chuckled softly.

"You're bloody brilliant when you look like you want to hex my bollocks off, Kitten," he smirked.

She stamped her foot indignantly, looking very much like she was about to blow a fuse at him and Thorfinn laughed out loud, ensuring the teapot, mugs and all the condiments for tea were laid on the table before excusing himself from her parent's company to fetch a shirt for himself. He made sure to snag Granger's hand and haul her off to her bedroom along with him.

"What are you doing?" she hissed when she'd shut the door. She spun on him wildly, looking like she really would hex him.

"Being polite," he smiled. "Something wrong, Princess?"

"You know very well what's wrong," she accused. "What are you still doing here? Why are you fetching tea and walking around in front of my parents without a shirt? Why are you interacting with them at all? You could've apparated home."

Thorfinn pulled her housecoat from her body with a wicked grin.

"Did you imagine I was finished with you?" he challenged, scooping his hands under her arse and hiking her up his body before capturing one of her nipples in his mouth.

"My parents are in the next room!" she hissed, swatting at him and trying to pry him off of her.

"So what?" he laughed. "Trust me, Princess, they already know you're fucking me. They spotted the overturned pile of books that fell off the coffee table, the letters on the kitchen floor that fell off the bench and the knocked over teapot and cups on the table from me fucking you on every flat surface in the house."

He cheeks went crimson at the very idea.

"That's no excuse to have sex just because they know we're sleeping together!" she protested, her hands fisted in his hair and pulling to try and keep him from kissing her soft skin. "Stop it, you bloody git. Put me down. I'm supposed to have brunch with them and I completely forgot because  _you_  keep distracting me with your giant cock."

"Don't pretend you're mad at me for my cock, Baby-girl. We both know you love every inch of it," Thorfinn teased, latching onto her other breast and drawing a low moan from her.

"Don't," she breathed, her head dropping back in pleasure. "They'll come bursting in here if we take too long."

"I can be quick," Thorfinn chuckled, supporting her with one hand and unbuttoning his jeans with the other.

"I'm not shagging you when my parents are in the next room, waiting for me to have brunch with them. Shit! I don't even have anything decent in the house to feed them. Which means I'll have to take them out for food and... oh, fuck!"

She trailed off to that soft expletive as he impaled her slowly on his cock, pressing her back against the bedroom wall and sinking to his bollocks deep inside her. She closed her eyes against the sensation, undoubtedly sore after spending most of yesterday and most of the night shagging him. Thorfinn was gentle with her even as he took her. He'd promised he could be quick, but he didn't want to brutalise her. He wanted to improve her mood and to have her let him come to brunch with her and her folks.

"You're going to be the death of me," she muttered against his neck when she leaned into him, kissing his neck softly.

Thorfinn chuckled, taking her slow but feeling the way her body heated and the way she began to tense, the muscles coiling tight, ready to snap free. When she broke in his hold a few minutes later, a breathy little moan tore from her lips, her face screwed up and her eyes closed tight as though she could barely stand the pleasure he pressed on her. Thorfinn grinned, letting her down slowly before lifting her off him and standing her on her feet.

"What about you?" she frowned when he cuddled her to his chest, obviously feeling his still hard cock against her stomach.

"After the delightful way you woke me up, we don't have time for the type of shagging it would take to bring me off again, Princess," Thorfinn told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Get dressed, yeah?"

"If I have to take them out for brunch, I should shower," she protested, sounding content and sleepy all over again.

"Why don't you jump through the shower while I go out and bring something back to feed them?" he suggested.

"You want to... go shopping for me to have brunch with my parents?" she asked, frowning as she tipped her head back to meet his gaze.

"I could eat," he grinned. "And I meant it, witch. I'm not done with you yet."

"You..." she frowned at him slightly, "Why do I get the feeling you're planning to spend the weekend with me?"

Thorfinn smiled at her slowly.

"Because I am. I'm not scared of a little time spent with your folks. And I know you don't have anywhere to be even when Monday morning rolls around," he said.

"You told Fred and George you'd meet them at their shop today to discuss working for them," she reminded him.

"I will," he shrugged. "Later. Potentially while you soak in a bath full of Epsom salts and healing potions so that I don't actually fuck you raw."

"You plan to keep on shagging me?" she groaned, pressing her forehead to the middle of his chest as though even the thought of more shagging made her tired.

Thorfinn sniggered. "That a problem, Princess?"

She shook her head slowly from side to side. "You realise that my parent will think we're dating, don't you?"

"So what?" he asked, shrugging. "I don't see them running to the reporters at the  _Prophet_. Who are they going to tell?"

"Just all of their friends and colleagues," she muttered. "They get very excited at the prospect of me dating. Especially since Mum was convinced I'd die a lonely spinster with too many cats after Ron and I broke up."

Thorfinn smirked.

"You do live in a spinster's hovel," he replied, grinning. "And I'd swear I saw a cat running around here somewhere."

"Crookshanks. Shit, I need to feed him," she muttered, pulling away as though she might rush off to do that.

"You're naked, Kitten," he reminded her. "You need to bathe. I'll feed your monster of a cat and tell your parents you're showering. I'll run out and grab some groceries to feed them brunch."

"But..." she protested, obviously tired and a little disoriented after her most recent orgasm.

Thorfinn laughed and steered her towards the bathroom off her bedroom. He snagged up his shirt and let himself out of her bedroom, grinning and shaking his head to himself as he went.

"Where's Hermione?" Arnold Granger demanded when he re-entered the room. He had his arms folded over his chest and he was still standing, looking annoyed, while his wife poured tea and sat at the table.

"She's grabbing a quick shower," Thorfinn smirked at the man's attitude. "I'm going to run out and grab a few things for brunch, just as soon as I've fed this demon of a cat. Crookshanks?"

The streak of orange fur came rushing at him from under the coffee table, obviously part Kneazel and having heard him say he was going to feed him.

"Thorfinn?" Genevieve asked. "You'll be joining us for brunch, then? And you're feeding the cat. You obviously slept over...?"

"I did, yeah," Thorfinn smirked, watching the cat lead him to the food dish and rubbing against his ankles while Thorfinn searched the nearby cupboards for what to feed the monster of a cat. "I'll cook brunch, actually. Dang it, cat, where does she keep the bloody food?"

Crookshanks jumped up on a nearby bench and batted at the top cupboard with his front paws. It had been warded, he noted with some amusement, preventing the cat from opening it.

"Alohamora," Thorfinn muttered, flicking his wand at it and watching it pop open.

He had to snatch the giant cat out of the air when he launched himself towards the cupboard like he'd settle himself in there and eat everything.

"Don't you dare, beast," Thorfinn growled at the cat. "I'd reckon you know you're not allowed in here and you won't be testing the rules to see if I'll let you get away with it. You be polite and wait on the floor or you'll go hungry."

The cat growled at him when he was deposited back onto the floor but Thorfinn just curled his lip away from his teeth in silent challenge. Behind him, he could hear the soft giggle of Hermione's mother over the lecture he was giving the cat. When Crookshanks latched onto his leg and began biting him through his jeans, Thorfinn glared at the beast.

"You understand who I am, cat?" he asked of the beast, lifting his leg high enough to glare at the animal. Crookshanks growled again. "No? I'm the man who can make your witch forget to come home to feed you, so I'd reckon you want to be a bit nicer to me, else you might find yourself going hungry more nights than not, got it?"

His tail twitching in fury, the cat released him to land gracefully on his feet before stalking over and sitting beside his food dish, patiently waiting as though he'd never done anything wrong.

Genevieve Granger was giggling at the table.

"That's what I thought," Thorfinn sneered at the cat as he moved over to feed the beast. He locked and warded the cupboard the food had come from when he put the box of biscuits back inside it, making certain the cat wouldn't be able to penetrate it.

"Right, I'm off. I'll be back with food in a bit," he said to the Granger's just as he heard the shower shut off in Hermione's room.

"No problem, dear," Genevieve waved, still giggling slightly. Arnold glared at him some more, looking very much like he planned to lecture his daughter the minute she reappeared.


	10. Chapter 10

Thorfinn disapparated from within the house, twisting away to land inside his own. He curled his lip when he spotted Toshka sprawled on the couch with some witch he didn't recognise bouncing herself on the bastard's cock. The witch shrieked in surprise at the sight of Thorfinn.

"If you expect me to believe that wasn't faked, I'm going to laugh," Toshka chided the witch on his dick.

"There's someone here!" the witch protested, squirming when Toshka grabbed her hips, refusing to let her loose. Thorfinn shook his head when Toshka looked over and spotted him before grinning.

"Thorfinn," Toshka smirked. "Home at last?"

"You better use strong cleaning charms on that couch, you twisted bastard," Thorfinn told him before stomping off to his bedroom to change. He should probably shower, he supposed, but he really couldn't be arsed. Changing his jeans and digging a fresh shirt from inside his wardrobe, he reapplied his deodorant and his cologne before digging some muggle money out of an old coffee tin he kept in the wardrobe for emergencies. He didn't often actually need muggle money, in the past he'd have disdained having to associate with muggles at all, before his imprisonment. Now, however, he found it was often easier to shop for food and certain, non-magical supplies in the muggle world because no one hissed or spat at him when he was shopping for groceries.

Disapparating with a sharp crack, he landed in an alley behind his usual supermarket, and hurried inside, thinking quickly about what to feed Granger and her parents for brunch. He was leaning towards a full breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs and all the trimmings. Having no idea what Granger had in her pantry, he bought everything he thought he'd need, shrinking the bag and putting it in his pocket when he was out of sight before apparating back to Granger's flat.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Hermione sighed heavily when she exited her bedroom to be confronted with the sight of her mother sitting at the kitchen table, looking through a magazine she'd obviously bought with her as a less than subtle hint. It was a wedding magazine. Hermione was  _not_  in the mood for her mother being pushy. Especially not with Thorfinn sniffing around and making a nuisance of himself.

Worse was the sight of her father, pacing up and down the length of her living room, muttering to himself about dangerous men as though he'd pegged Thorfinn for the criminal he was the minute he'd laid eyes on him.

"Feeling a little more refreshed, love?" her mother asked conversationally, eyeing her over the top of her magazine.

"I am, actually," Hermione admitted. "Dad, are you going to have a cup of tea, or are you determined to wear a hole in that patch of carpet?"

"Who is he?" Arnold Granger demanded, converging on her immediately when he realised she'd joined them.

"Thorfinn?" Hermione confirmed. "He's..."

"Your boyfriend," her mother finished for her, smiling widely.

"I..." Hermione opened her mouth to deny the claim before recalling the reaction she'd likely get if she told her parents she was causally shagging Rowle and wasn't at all sure she wanted to date him.

"If he's some one-night-stand, he's not welcome at brunch," he father warned.

"Arnold dear, Thorfinn said he'd  _cook_  the brunch. Must you fill yourself with such bluster over such a handsome young man?" Genevieve wanted to know.

"Do we have to have this conversation?" Hermione asked, her cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment to know her parents were discussing her sex life and her romantic prospects.

"I don't trust him," Arnold announced.

"Because he's bigger than you and cheeky enough not to feign a wince when you tried to crush his hand?" her mother needled.

"Mum," Hermione protested.

"Because he saunters about in my daughter's flat like he owns the place, despite making it obvious that he's never been here before, and he didn't even have the decency to dress properly before introducing himself to us."

"I hardly find that something to complain over," her mother said and Hermione sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and using her wand to fix herself a nice cup of tea. She didn't have the patience for this. She was tired and she wanted to go back to bed. Her most recent orgasm had certainly improved her mood, but she wasn't in the mood for her parents' bickering and she certainly didn't like the idea that they were doing so over Thorfinn.

"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Arnold growled at his wife.

"Must we have this argument?" Hermione put to the pair of them.

"Of course we must," Arnold retorted. "Your boyfriend is trouble, Hermione."

"Why didn't you tell us you were seeing someone, sweetheart?" Genevieve wanted to know.

Hermione sighed again. "It's a recent development," she offered. "Look, I really had forgotten that the two of you would be here this morning."

"In other words, we're lucky you were home and not off at his house, shagging him there instead," Arnold snapped.

"Pretty much," Thorfinn's voice intruded on the argument and Hermione squeaked when she looked over to find him in the kitchen, obviously having just arrived if the bag of groceries he clutched was any indication.

"Thorfinn!" Hermione hissed furiously.

"What?" he smirked at her wickedly. "He's trying to make you uncomfortable, Princess. My old man's the same way. You'll see when you meet him."

"I though your father was dead," she frowned at him.

Thorfinn frowned in return, obviously wondering why she thought so before recalling that he'd told her he was the last of his bloodline, hence being allowed out of prison to ensure the Rowle bloodline didn't die out. He seemed to realise quickly that she meant as much.

"Nah," he shook his head. "He's alive. That 'last of my bloodline' bit is more of a last of my bloodline of any respectable age to be siring kids, Princess. They aren't about to ask a man in his sixties to spawn more little shits like me, are they?"

Hermione's cheeks blossomed pink once more at the mention of children, noting the way her mother looked up, smiling widely at the prospect.

"You admit that you're shagging my daughter?" Arnold demanded at that moment, his face turning red with building rage.

Thorfinn smirked wickedly at the man.

"Course I am," he grinned. "She's my girlfriend."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up at the casual way he said it before he shot her a look, lifting one eyebrow as though asking her if she  _wanted_  to be his girlfriend. Hermione blinked at him.

"That's wonderful," her mother pronounced.

"It's bloody terrible," Arnold disagreed. "Look at him, Genevieve. If he's not a criminal, I'd reckon he's a psychopath."

Hermione wanted to bury her face in her hands when Thorfinn lost his wicked grin in favour of a less than friendly expression.

"Doesn't seem real wise provoking me on the off-chance that I am, now does it?" he asked her father coldly, his temper obviously flaring. The temperature in the room seemed to drop by several degrees with his frosty tone and Hermione was sure that her father was suddenly rather afraid, all things considered. Not that he showed it.

"If you are I'd reckon you'd better just stay the hell away from my daughter," Arnold growled in return, refusing to back down.

"Why don't we make brunch?" Hermione suggested, hurrying across the room to the kitchen before Thorfinn could do something drastic. She doubted he would break his parole over her father's rudeness, but she wasn't about to risk it.

"Arnold," Genevieve snapped, her voice sharp. "If you continue provoking your daughter's boyfriend, I'm going to do something you won't like."

"What I don't like is the idea of my little girl dating a criminal," Arnold growled at his wife.

"You don't know that he's a criminal. He's a perfectly polite young man who went out of his way to get supplies so we can have brunch with Hermione. And  _you_  are ruining it with your bluster. What have I told you about the blustering? You tried it with poor Ronald, as well and the boy ended up leaving Hermione. If you drive this one away, too, I'm personally going to maim you," her mother threatened.

"Weasley was a right foul git and he cheated on my little girl. I was right to warn that bastard away," Arnold argued.

Hermione shoved her hands against Thorfinn's chest when he stood, levelling a glare at her father. He dropped his blue eyes to stare at her for a moment, obviously noting how upset she was and Hermione blinked when he anger seemed to melt away.

"Sorry, Princess," he murmured, giving her a soft, repentant smile before he reached to tuck a stray curl behind her ear, smoothing his fingers along the length of her jaw. Hermione quivered a little at the caress.

"Try to avoid threatening my parents, please?" she whispered. He nodded in agreement, setting the groceries on the counter and curling his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him and pressing a soft kiss to the middle of her forehead.

Hermione hated herself a little for the way she melted into the tender caress.

"Come on, Baby-girl, let's get some food into everyone before things turn nasty, yeah?" he asked, releasing her slowly and moving over to the bag of groceries.

Hermione's eyes widened when she saw the amount of food he'd purchased.

"Bloody hell, Rowle!" she exclaimed. "Are we feeding a small army? There are only four of us."

Thorfinn looked at the small mountain of food he'd bought before looking back at Hermione.

"You're going to need your strength, Princess. I've got a lot of energy-draining plans centred solely around you just as soon as your folks clear off," he smirked, not at all lowering his voice, obviously still trying to provoke her father.

Hermione blushed crimson when her father spluttered furiously from across the room.

"Thorfinn!" she hissed, swatting his arm in frustration.

"Mmmm, you'll be saying my name over and over again just like that when I get you alone again, Baby-girl."

Hermione groaned, dropping her face into her hands when she heard her mother giggle from the table while her father seemed to be having a conniption. Thorfinn laughed wickedly, pressing another kiss to her forehead before he began ferreting around in her cupboards and drawers, searching for the pots and pans he needed to fix them all something to eat.

A tense silence followed when Hermione gathered the courage enough to help him cook while Arnold was forced to drink a cup of tea and Genevieve went back to perusing the bridal magazine she'd brought along with her. Thorfinn in the kitchen was a dangerous thing. He was obviously comfortable cooking, but his huge stature meant that Hermione's tiny kitchen was not really big enough for the two of them. More often than not he ending up caging her in, pressing himself against her back while she leaned against the bench scrambling the eggs, while he was frying bacon around her as they both tried to use the stove at the same time.

She got the feeling from the lead pipe in his jeans that he rather liked being in such close quarters with her.

"Taste?" he offered a fork to her covered in some kind of homemade relish he'd been whisking up.

Hermione didn't even think about it as she leaned forward and took the relish covered bit of bacon from the fork. The flavours exploded across her tongue and Hermione groaned at the deliciousness.

"Thorfinn, that's amazing!" she praised, licking her lips.

"I love it when you make those sweet little noises of pleasure for me, Princess," he told her, stooping to kiss the side of her neck sinfully and Hermione blushed all over again when her father pointedly cleared his throat.

Elbowing Thorfinn in the ribs, Hermione tried to gather her scattered wits, hating him just a bit for his ability to so effectively scramble her thoughts. He was chuckling cruelly as he continued cooking, allowing her to duck under his arm when the toaster popped.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" she offered to him when she began carrying the veritable feast over to the table.

"Yes, please," he replied sweetly, flipping an omelette while he glanced over at her.

Hermione frowned when she reached the table. Her father had purposely sat directly opposite her mother at the four-seater dining table, ensuring that she and Thorfinn wouldn't be able to sit beside one another.

"So tell us, darling," Genevieve smiled, pretending not to notice her husband's lack of subtlety. "How have you been? How's work? Did you get the research grant you wanted?"

Hermione sighed.

"I quit," Hermione informed her parents quietly, watching both of them almost completely forget about Thorfinn to hear such an announcement form Hermione.

"You… quit?" her mother frowned. "Sweetheart, I don't think you've quit anything you set your mind to since you gave up on Divination and Muggles Studies in your third year. What happened?"

"I realised I'd wasted years working on that stupid project for my department.  _I_  didn't even think it was a viable topic to receive the grant, and I certainly didn't  _get_  the grant. So I quit. I'll find a better and more productive way to spend my time."

"Doing what, darling?"

Hermine shrugged her shoulders.

"I have no idea," she admitted. "Maybe something to do with the law system in the wizarding world? It needs to be brought up to speed and the current times, rather than being steeped in eighteenth century bollocks. Or maybe something to do with Arithmancy. I was always good at that. I haven't really put a lot of thought into it, if I'm being honest. I quit yesterday, and then I had dinner with Harry and we went to the pub."

"And you've been busy since," Thorfinn's low voice came cheerfully from behind her before he leaned around her, serving an omelette onto her plate before setting down a number of other dishes for their meal in the middle of the table.

"Must you?" she sighed, her cheeks flushing crimson once more at his obvious reference to the fact that she'd been so busy shagging him, she hadn't had the time or the energy to even think about career options.

"I must," he assured her, gently pulling on the hair at the back of her head until she tipped her head up.

He swooped down to steal a kiss from her lips when she did so, apparently set on the attempt to give her father an aneurysm before the brunch could be over.

"What is it  _you_  do, Thorfinn?" Arnold wanted to know.

Hermione closed her eyes when Thorfinn released her, rounding the table to sit opposite her. He smirked at Hermione before turning to her father.

"I got fired yesterday, actually," he admitted. "But I've got an interview later today as a procurer of rare items for a growing business in the wizarding world."

"You got fired?" her father frowned. "What'd you do to get fired?"

"Beat the shit out of someone who spat on me," Thorfinn said casually, serving himself some food and looking entirely too cheery.

"You're a criminal, aren't you?" Arnold demanded.

"Dad, can we just eat breakfast without turning this into an interrogation or a pissing contest? Please?" Hermione asked, exasperated.

"It's fine, Princess," Thorfinn threw her a smile. "Yeah, I'm a criminal. Done hard time for it, too. They let me out on parole a couple of years back, though. And folk in the wizarding world don't take too kindly to murderers, so it's not real easy to get the best jobs on offer. As yesterday proved, people spit at murderers."

The whole table fell silent as both of her parents stared at Thorfinn, terrified. Hermione wanted to kick him but the table was too wide and she couldn't reach.

"You're making a terrible first impression, Rowle," she sighed, frowning at him.

"Would you prefer that we pretend?" Thorfinn asked, raising his eyebrows at her. "Let them get their hopes up thinking I'm a good guy for their little girl before dropping the quaffle on them that I  _am_  a criminal?"

"Hermione, you're dating a murderer?" her mother frowned, obviously confused and more than a little concerned.

"I… Mum, I told you about the war in the wizarding world. Technically, I'm a murderer, too," Hermione said softly, her eyes turning to meet her mother's.

"You didn't go to prison," she pointed out. "You only acted in self-defence."

"If you went to prison, you killed people in cold blood," Arnold accused softly, his gaze still on Thorfinn.

"I did," Thorfinn agreed quietly, holding her father's gaze before glancing over at Hermione. She made a face at him, not at all pleased with where this was going.

"Don't," she warned him.

"They've a right to know, Princess," he shrugged his shoulders at her. "I was a Death Eater."

"The people you said worked for the megalomaniac who tried to wipe out non-magic folk and people like you, Hermione?" her mother frowned.

Hermione nodded, sighing softly.

"You're… dating someone who could be involved in something like that?" her mother asked, aghast.

Hermione thought seriously about hexing Thorfinn and about throwing him out of her flat. She didn't think this was going to end well. She would probably have to modify her parents' memories after this just to keep them from arguing that she was a big girl who could make her own choices, even if they were bad ones.

"Mum… it's complicated," Hermione sighed heavily, suddenly losing her appetite and not wanting to sit there for the rest of the meal, not matter how good it smelled.

"Complicated?" Arnold scoffed. "Hermione's, it's barmy. I won't stand for it! You're dating a murderer? You're shagging a murderer? What are you going to do if you get pregnant, love? He's a murderer! For all we know he might turn on you – on all of us – at any given moment!"

"Keep talking and I'll certainly turn on you, mate," Thorfinn threatened, his temper flaring at being spoken about as though he weren't in the room.

Arnold punched him. Hermione blinked in shock, her mind reeling at the sight before her as her father lunged across the table and slugged Thorfinn across the jaw.

She expected fireworks. She expected an angry roar from Thorfinn and a swift Killing Curse aimed at her father.

She didn't expect Thorfinn to wipe at the blood that suddenly leaked from the split in his lip, his eyes on her father, his expression cool.

"Can we move on, now?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at the man.

"No, we bloody well can't! You stay away from my daughter, you hear me?" Arnold bolstered, leaping to his feet and looking like he might hit Thorfinn again.

"Dad!" Hermione bit out. "Enough! Thorfinn, I think I'd like you to leave. You're just making things worse! What is wrong with you? Why would you tell them about your past?"

Thorfinn's blue eyes snapped over to rest on her face and he stared at her hard.

"You haven't been listening to me, Princess," he accused softly. "I mean it when I talk about you being the mother of my children. I mean it when I suggest that for all that you  _think_  you can't have them, you bloody well can, and I plan to plant a kid in you as surely as I plan to shag you again just as soon as your folks clear off."

"If that was the case," Hermione retorted. "It'd make more sense to do it  _before_  provoking my parents and telling them that you're a murderer who fought for the wrong side during the war. What would possess you to tell them that you were involved with a dangerous gang of criminals whose main agenda was to wipe muggles off the face of the Earth? How would that possibly endear them to you? More to the point, why would you follow that announcement with a plan to impregnate me?"

Thorfinn dabbed at the blood trickling from his lip.

"I'd rather clear the air now, Baby-girl. I have every intention of making you the mother of my children. Now since I reckon you're rather fond of your folks that means that one day these two would be in our kids' lives. I'd rather not drop it on them later that I fucked up in my youth. I'd rather have them know from the beginning that I fucked up hard, and that I paid my debt to society, and that they fucking let me the hell back out. You want to have them find out at our son's fifth birthday that I'm a murderer? Ruin the party with accusations then, rather than sorting that shit out now?"

Hermione spluttered at him.

"I can't even have kids, Thorfinn," Hermione reminded him. "I told you that right from the beginning. There will be no five year old son's birthday party to ruin because the likelihood of me falling pregnant and carrying to term is even slimmer than the likelihood of my parents  _ever_  approving of you now."

"I'm telling you that you're wrong."

"I'm never wrong!" Hermione snapped, her eyes flashing at him. "Don't you know that by now? I wasn't wrong about you at twelve and I'm not wrong about this, now."

"Wipe their memories, then," he shrugged his shoulders. "Obliviate them and they won't remember this even happened. It's not as though you don't know how, is it?"

He narrowed his eyes on her angrily, obviously annoyed with her.

"There will be no memory wiping," Genevieve spoke up sternly, having sat quiet as Hermione argued with the man she'd been shagging.

"There you go," Thorfinn pointed to her mother. "She gets it. And doesn't want you messing with their minds again."

"I'm not saying I approve of you or your methods, young man," Genevieve replied curtly.

"Would you prefer to go into this thinking I was a sweet, charming sod who was slowly stealing your daughter's heart, only to drop it on you later?" Thorfinn asked the woman, slanting a glance in her direction and raising one eyebrow.

"It might've made more sense to have showed a little more of your character to suggest you'd changed, prior to revealing the truth," Genevieve said. "Tell me, why  _were_  you a Death Eater? After all, the cat is out of the bag. I'm curious to know why you would advertise it and why you seem so interested in my daughter. If you went to war to fight for the idea that people like her and like us shouldn't be a part of your magical world, why do you want her? Why do you want  _us_  to accept your past?"

"I was a Death Eater because I was sucked into it by the people surrounding me and because I'd been taught most of my life that muggles and muggleborns, by extension, were lesser humans than wizards," Thorfinn shrugged. "I was young and impressionable and angry at the world for no good reason and I did what I was told. For the most part, my beliefs were confirmed by the people others around me associated with and by the muggle world, in general. When you're shown only the worst of something, you think the worst of it."

"Then why do you want to be with Hermione?" Genevieve asked, frowning.

"Because she's bloody brilliant," Thorfinn admitted. "Sitting in a prison cell going out of your mind has a way of altering your beliefs. I'd known for a while before the end of the war that people like Hermione weren't all I'd believed them to be when I signed on to be a Death Eater, but it's not something you back out of easily. Anyone who took the Mark and then deserted the cause was hunted down and butchered in the worst possible ways known to wizard-kind. I couldn't back out if I wanted to live."

"Why pursue her now, then?" Genevieve asked.

"Happenstance," Thorfinn admitted with a shrug. "We loathed each other at school and we were enemies during the war. Coming across each other whilst drunk when I'd been let out of prison was pure chance. Turns out that I'm a bit fond of her, though."

"A bit?" Genevieve scoffed. "Young man, you're professing your intent to sire her children."

Thorfinn shrugged. "Just telling it like it is."

"If you could go back to before you joined your Dark Lord and take it back, would you?" her mother asked, eyeing him now.

"Course I would."

"Because you got caught?" she pushed. "Because you went to prison over it?"

Thorfinn shook his head.

"Because I was wrong," he said quietly. "Because though most of your non-magic gadgets make less sense to me than hieroglyphics, you're not all dirty, evil people bent on wiping wizards from the planet and you're not all wretched. Because people like Hermione aren't lesser than people with magical ancestry. In most cases, people like her are better at magic. Not in understanding the history, mind, but in terms of general power as witches or wizards, muggleborns and half-bloods are more powerful than some of the older pureblood lines. If I could go back, I'd have switched sides and seduced Hermione that much sooner."

Hermione blinked at him in shock, surprised to hear him say so. Shocked that he had so drastically changed the beliefs he surely must've held up to and during the war.

"How many people have you killed, Thorfinn?" her mother asked shrewdly.

"Not sure, to be honest. I was charged with six counts of murder, along with kidnapping, assault, trespass, vandalism, arson and a number of other, lesser charges."

"You don't even know how many people you murdered?" he father finally spoke, having fallen silent to let his wife speak.

"Most of the people I killed were done so in self-defence. It was kill or be killed during the war. Those who weren't were people I was ordered to kill under the threat of being killed myself if I disobeyed the Dark Lord or people who'd likely have tried to kill me, had they had the chance."

"Arson?" his mother asked. "Assault?"

"I have a temper," Thorfinn shrugged his shoulders. "I'm still on parole."

"How long have you been out of prison?"

"Couple of years, now. There are a number of us who were paroled. We all have to check in every week to ensure we're behaving. Our wands are scanned to ensure we haven't cast any unfriendly spells. We're closely monitored. I've been on my best behaviour."

"You got fired for beating someone up just yesterday," Arnold sneered.

Hermione winced when Thorfinn's eyes flashed, obviously not liking her father any more than Arnold liked him.

"Why don't I force you into a situation you want to back out of shortly after signing up, force you to do heinous things, lock you up for several years and then set you loose in a society where you can't hold a decent job because of all of you've done and where people sneer and spit and kick at you every chance they get to remind you what a dumb cunt you were and see how long it takes before you get tired of turning the other cheek whenever someone spits on you?" he growled at Arnold, his teeth clenched.

Hermione expected more fireworks. She expected her father to retaliate and she expected that Arnold would say something else to further antagonise Thorfinn. She didn't expect that he would pick up his tea cup and drink from it, regarding Thorfinn over the rim. He still didn't look like he approved, but he also looked like he wasn't going to continue arguing. Hermione held her breath as he lowered the tea-cup, waiting to see what he would do.

Hermione watched as her father took his eyes off Thorfinn, meeting his wife's mildly annoyed gaze for a long minute before he turned to Hermione. His eyes scanned over her tense face, noting the pinched expression of worry pursing her lips and the fact that she was palming her wand in her lap, ready to hex Thorfinn into next week if he lost his temper and tried to hex her parents.

"You call her 'Princess', correct?" Arnold asked, turning back to Thorfinn after regarding Hermione carefully for several long minutes.

Thorfinn nodded slowly, flicking a glance at Hermione, who eyed him in return, unsure where the conversation was about to go, but thinking that she probably wasn't going to like it.

Arnold nodded, too. "Well, boy, you better treat my daughter like Queen. If she ever turns up in my living room crying because of you; if you ever lay and unfriendly hand on her; or if you ever show even a  _hint_  of the person you used to be in her presence, they'll never find your body. You probably don't have any idea what a dentist is, but be warned that if you  _ever_  hurt my daughter, I'm going to rip out over single tooth in your head. And I'm going to show you my drill."

For a man in his late fifties, who was at least a foot shorter than Thorfinn, Arnold Granger managed to make a rather intimidating specimen of himself right in that moment. If the look on Thorfinn's face was any indication, he was more than a little terrified of being shown a drill and Hermione had to hide her giggle but stuffing a piece of bacon in her mouth when Thorfinn looked over at her, alarmed at such a barbaric threat.

She got the feeling that, had he not already been planning to treat her like a queen, he certainly would now.


	11. Chapter 11

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief when her parents finally left without any further arguments about Thorfinn, despite the number of snarky comments Thorfinn made and the number of barbs her father fired back in return.

"So," Thorfinn said when they were gone, leaving the two of them alone on the couch in her living room. "On a scale of one to ten, how cross with me are you right now?"

Hermione looked over at him, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. The truth was that, once everything had been put out in the open and her parents had stopped being horrified, she wasn't really that annoyed by the fact that he'd told them all about his past. Mostly she was just baffled. Baffled that he actually seemed so intent on being her boyfriend, and on overcoming her infertility for the sake of bearing the children he needed to sire to keep out of Azkaban. He seemed genuinely intent of laying claim to her as his woman, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. She was hardly easy to live with, and he could easily find much more agreeable witches than her to date.

"Why me, Rowle?" Hermione asked quietly. "You barely know me. We have a messy history. We're incompatible. Why in Merlin's name are you so determined to… I don't know… be with me?"

Rowle's brow furrowed slightly in return and he traced his eyes over her wild curls, all the way to her toes, ensconced as there were in a pair of thick socks. Hermione wondered what he saw. Did he see a messy-haired witch who hated her job, but probably  _wasn't_  going to quit, despite the past three years being wasted? Did he see a stubborn little mudblood who'd once wiped his memory and fought on the opposing side in the war that had ripped their community apart? Did he see a frigid ice-queen who could rip strips off of him with a few well-worded sentences, or a bitch who could run rings around him with her vocabulary and cleverness, just to make him feel stupid whenever he annoyed her.

And Hermione didn't doubt that if they were really going to try this, he was going to annoy the stuffing out of her. How could he not, given that even in the brief amount of time she'd spent with him thus far, he'd prove to be a shit-stirring torment who enjoyed provoking her just to watch her lose her temper before he fucked her all over again.

Thorfinn shrugged his shoulders after a long minute of silently eyeing her as though he were trying to figure out why she felt the need to ask in the first place. Hermione got the distinct impression that he actually, genuinely liked her and couldn't fathom that she had flaws.

"I like fucking you," he said, as though that was reason enough to risk everything, from his freedom to his sanity and maybe even his life – or at the very least, his pretty smile if her father decided to use the dental drill on him, after all.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, waiting for the rest of the explanation as to why he actually wanted to be with her, but he didn't offer any further reasons and she frowned.

"If you're only in it for the sex, I'm sure there are easier witches to deal with, Rowle," Hermione said coolly, getting to her feet and stomping over to the kitchen to put the kettle on once more, feeling the need for a bracing cup of tea before this turned to a fight.

"Don't like fucking  _them_ ," Rowle replied, getting up and following her. Hermione narrowed her eyes when he stood in the entrance way of the kitchen, trapping her there. "I like fucking  _you_. And I like that you're so willing to fuck me whenever I want."

"Oh, please," Hermione rolled her eyes. "You might have a dark reputation, Rowle, but if you walk around looking like  _that_  all the time, I'm certain that the only witches likely to turn you down would be lesbians."

Rowle snorted. "I've fucked a few of the bent girls too, I'll have you know."

"Before or after they realised they were bent? Maybe you made them gay. I wouldn't be surprised."

"Witch, I  _will_  spank you," he threatened, smirking and obviously more amused than he was offended by the suggestion.

"Don't look at me like that. If I fuck you again, I'm certain that something will tear," Hermione warned, holding up her hands as though to ward him off though he hadn't moved a step in her direction.

"Want me to run you a bath with some Epsom salts and healing potions?" he offered with a kind smile, and Hermione almost dropped her teacup and the casual way he did so; almost nonchalantly, as though he wasn't even really thinking about how unusual it was to have a former Death Eater offer to do anything nice for her.

She frowned up at him, trying to fathom whether or not he was actually serious about this. Surely, he was just having her on? She was, at best, the flavour of the month and next week he'd run off after someone leggier. Someone with more manageable hair. Someone who would more easily make time and make room for him in her life, rather than being a workaholic who stayed too late at the office every day. Hermione blinked when the kettle boiled, glancing between it and Thorfinn's face, utterly confused.

"Why are you looking at me like I'm an idiot?" he wanted to know, frowning at her. "We've already been fucking, Granger. And we're pretty good at it, I reckon. We keep going back for more, anyway, and usually before we can just take our kicks and be on our way. What's the problem? Are you still hung up on this Death Eater versus Order member thing?"

"No," Hermione frowned. "I just… why me, Rowle? Of all the witches you've fucked and all the more agreeable options as a… girlfriend… why on earth are you pursuing me? And don't just say it's because you like shagging me. No matter how good the sex is, we're  _not_  evenly matched. We both have explosive tempers and you need an heir or they're going to lock you back up."

Rowle shrugged his huge shoulders.

"I keep telling you, you're wrong about the fertility thing, Princess. And you're smart. And pretty. And fierce as hell. What's not to fancy?"

"Now you're saying you fancy me?" she frowned at him.

"I don't tend to ask people to be my girlfriend if I don't fancy them, baby-girl," he chuckled. "And your parents like me. So, what's the problem? You don't want to give it a go with me, after all?"

Hermione sighed. "I didn't say that."

"Then let's run you a bath and I can bathe you until you feel better, and then we can fuck all over again," Thorfinn smirked at her.

"Is that all you want me for?" Hermione frowned at him.

"Got to fuck my kid into you somehow, Princess," he shrugged.

"It's not going to work," Hermione said quietly.

"Maybe it will, maybe it won't," Thorfinn said. "But trying is half the fun, right?"

"You're incorrigible," Hermione informed him, smiling in spite of herself.

"You kind of like me this way," he said.

Hermione hated that he was right. Fixing them both a cup of tea while he winked and sauntered off to her bathroom to run the bath, Hermione was beginning to think that, as annoyed as she had been with him during her parents' visit, she actually  _was_  rather fond of him. When she followed him into the bathroom, carrying the cups of tea she'd made, she found him already stretched out and naked inside her bathtub – which he looked to have enlarged to make room for the two of them to comfortably share it.

She shook her head when she looked at him, unable to keep from admiring the fine lines of his chiselled chest and abs. His broad shoulders would've been cramped inside that tub were it not for the enlargement charms, and his long golden blond hair hung about them. His eyes were closed as the tub slowly filled with warm water, giving off the sheen of the potions he must've added to it.

Setting down their cups within reach, Hermione began slowly and carefully peeling herself out of her clothes. She closed her eyes as she pulled her shirt off over her head and when she opened them, Thorfinn was watching her undress with heat gleaming in his sapphire blue eyes. Hermione kind of hated herself for wondering what it would be like to have a child with him that had those brilliant blue eyes. She hated herself, because the very thought, combined with his insistence that she could get pregnant with the right person – and that  _he_  was that person – were going to get her hopes up and Hermione wasn't sure she'd be able to take the heartache when they were dashed.

"You're staring," she warned him quietly.

"I am," he agreed, nodding his head as his eyes traced over her semi-naked form. "You asked why I'm so interested in you, Princess?"

Hermione frowned, nodding at him as she unhooked her bra, letting it slide down her arms to the floor and baring her breasts to his hungry gaze.

"Because I'm not sick of fucking you," he told her. "I'm usually done with a witch after a round or two. But I've fucked you half a hundred times, or more, and every time you strip out of your shirt, I'm hard for you all over again."

Hermione's cheeks flushed pink and she pressed her lips together, trying to hide her pleased smile at the admittance.

"You don't find me frigid?" she asked, recalling one of Ron's favourite insults for her.

"Frigid?" Thorfinn scoffed, offering her his hand to help her balance when she stripped out of her clothes until she was naked before stepping into the tub with him. "Princess, you and the word 'frigid' don't even belong in the same universe."

Hermione laughed, letting him help her down until she sat between his legs in the warm water. The sting of the water against her over-used parts was almost instantly soothed with the potions and salts he'd put in the water and when he looped an arm around her middle, gently urging her to lean back against his chest, Hermione smiled contentedly, letting her eyes drift closed. After such a tense brunch, and such a long time spent working on her project for work, only to have been denied the grant, it felt good to just take a few minutes and relax.

Thorfinn pressed his lips to the side of her neck affectionately, lightly tracing his fingers over the purple scar that danced upon her midriff. He didn't grope her, or try to talk; he simply held her there in the hot water, snug and secure in his embrace, and Hermione would admit that she'd never felt so content in all her life. Exhausted from the late night and many rounds of love making, she wouldn't at all mind just drifting back off to sleep.

Thorfinn seemed content to let her, his fingers tracing hypnotizing patterns over her skin and his lips routinely kissing her neck, lulling her toward sleep. Hermione hummed softly in appreciation and sighed contentedly before drifting right off to sleep in his arms.

**~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Thorfinn chuckled softly to himself as the witch in his arms fell asleep. She was a funny little thing, he'd give her that. She'd gotten so funny about him admitting to his past, and he'd been willing to stake his chance with her on telling her folks the truth. She just didn't get it yet, he supposed. She might've confusedly accepted to be his girlfriend – at least, he thought she'd accepted – but she still didn't comprehend that he planned on keeping her.

The lads were going to laugh at him when they found out. Bass had already found it funny enough last night to learn that he'd been fucking the curly-haired little witch. To admit he was seeing her would likely get him a few hexes and maybe a couple of sneers, but Thorfinn didn't care. He liked the witch. She was fiery and feisty and unafraid to speak her mind. She'd spoken up in defence of him, and she had obviously done something to the Skeeter woman at some point to make her fearful of Hermione's wrath.

All of that, combined with her intelligence, her magical power, and the fact that she was an insatiable minx in bed just made him want to keep her. And he would. The witch might not know it yet, but she belonged to him, now. He almost couldn't wait to watch her fight him on it, too. And she was going to fight him. He knew that. She might be willing to nap in his arms, and to ride his cock like a fucking queen, but she still doubted Toshka's theory that Thorfinn could impregnate her.

She was going to try and push him away at every turn, insisting he'd be better suited with someone who could easily get knocked up and someone who would carry him the kid he needed. Someone whose friends weren't going to give him trouble at every turn. Not that Potter was going to be too much, trouble, he reckoned. The git knew. He was obviously her confidante and she'd told him they'd been fucking. He might not approve, but he seemed mature enough to know better than to try and intervene unless Thorfinn did something that put the witch in danger.

She was in danger, all right. In danger of stealing his bloody heart, if he didn't watch it. The sweet little sounds she made and the way she swatted him and tried to tell him off when they'd been cooking together and he'd been tormenting her father, had almost brought him undone. It took more than he'd thought he had in him to resist bending her over the kitchen counter and fucking her there until she screamed, parents be damned.

As he traced his hands over her skin, feeling how soft and pliant she was in his hold, Thorfinn felt a surge of protectiveness well up within him. Hell, he was so fucking screwed with this one. Part of him wanted to run. To go out and find some witch he didn't give a shit about, fuck a kid into her and then never have to speak to the bitch again once the kid was in his hold. If he did that, he knew he'd never be in danger of turning into a ninny who was more interested in staying in and goofing off with his witch than he was in having a couple of pints with the lads down the pub.

Hell, if he never went to the pub again, he probably wouldn't even mind, as long as he got to fuck Granger instead. So screwed. He should leave.

He should, but he wouldn't. He knew that. She'd looked so utterly surprised when he'd offered to run her a bloody bath, that he wanted to stay, even if only to prove that even though he was an arsehole with a dodgy past, there were still decent blokes out there who knew how to treat their woman right.

And fuck, he wanted to treat this one right. He wanted to coddle her and baby her and take care of her, even knowing that she was a fully capable and independent witch who didn't need some git to fetch her dinner, or handle her bills, or hold her in the dark to keep the monsters away. His witch was brave – hell, she was probably braver than him, where monsters were concerned, and she was going to laugh her arse off when she discovered his deathly fear of doxies – but Merlin, he wanted to look after her. He wanted to make sure that she forgot words like 'bitch' and 'frigid' and 'condescending whore'.

Her used Weasel had done a number on her psyche, though she probably didn't realise it, and Thorfinn was thinking he'd be only too happy to prove that words more apt for describing her were 'goddess' and 'sexy' and 'wickedly clever'. Hell, he wanted to hear her screaming his name when she came on his cock until they were too fucking old for sex, and he wanted to fix her cups of tea and toy with her curls while she read her books.

Fuck, the witch made him want to be  _better_  and Thorfinn that that was a very dangerous thing, indeed. He'd been a criminal, and he was still paying for his mistakes. He couldn't afford to give her a fancy life filled with pretty things and posh parties. Well, he could, but the Ministry had frozen his accounts, so right now his meagre pay checks were all he had to go on.

He needed to meet with the Weasley boys today, too. He'd have to figure out if he wanted to risk his probation moving product for them, legal or not, because this little witch in his arms made him want to avoid ever going back to prison or risking his freedom ever again. Toshka was going to give him hell for it, he was sure. Hell, the bastard was already giving him hell for it. Thorfinn was surprised the git hadn't invaded Granger's flat looking for them. He never tended to do so well when left to his own devices, and his go-to for distraction was stalking Granger. With the curse and its effects revealed, he was likely itching with the urge for more answers, even if they came at the cost of her privacy. He'd have to keep an eye on the git, and make sure Granger understood that even if he was a right nosy prick, he didn't mean any harm. At least, not to her. The used weasel was another matter entirely.

Closing his eyes, Thorfinn supposed that it would be perfectly acceptable to wait until this afternoon to meet with the Weasley twins about the job. Right now, he had more important things to do. Like holding Hermione Granger while she tried to sleep off the effects of so much time spent fucking him.

Thorfinn chuckled to himself once more and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck before reaching for his wand and casting a stasis charm over the bath water to maintain the toasty temperature. Curling his arms more snugly around his witch and letting his head rest against the rim of the bath, Thorfinn followed her into slumber.


End file.
